" data-original-title="" title="">Alex Moxon has recorded the first album solely under his name, and it is a well-played, mostly middle-of-the-road studio session in which his quartet may not turn any heads but should not turn anyone off either. It is simply pleasant, non-unnerving music—much of it written by Moxon—into which the ensemble pours its collective talents to produce a bright and agreeable outcome.

Happily for prospective listeners, Moxon chooses to accentuate the melodious side of the guitar, never straying into its more dissonant or vexatious range, even on the album's lone barn-burner, "Scientology," wherein everyone has an enlivening chance to brandish his chops. Having said that, it should be noted that "Scientology" is the exception, not the rule, as Moxon and his colleagues seldom chart a course that is more impetuous than self-controlled and steady as she goes.

That stance is given weight from the outset on