On Minus Six's new album Come Out from Where You Hide, "Grassfed" boldly announces itself with gorgeously intertwined fast runs on sax and piano - downhill, then up, and back down again, a deft flash of early jazz grafted onto verses of piano rock. The instrumental breaks elevate the whole, with pianist Kevin Carton and saxophonist Matt Sivertsen given the space to playfully develop and explore.

It's telling that these sections represent the whole of the song's progression, as the verses and chorus are (relatively speaking) inert - which is where the album falters as a whole. The dominant style and overly consistent mix don't sustain interest over the course of the record, and fertile detours don't come quite often enough.

It would have been the perfect time for Scott Lucas to close the door on Local H.

In February, he was mugged in Russia, an attack that left him with damage to his vocal chords - and they still aren't fully healed. In August, Local H announced that drummer Brian St. Clair was amicably leaving the guitar/drum duo after 14 years.

On the plus side, the band was coming off Hallelujah! I'm a Bum, which one PopMatters.com author dubbed the "best rock album of 2012," and which TinyMixTapes.com called a "watershed album ... . Not only is it the most intricately arranged and carefully structured of the band's 20-plus-year history, but it is also their first to delve so deeply into the polluted waters of partisan politics. ... Musically, Hallelujah! is on par with the best entries in the H catalogue. Lucas has a knack for crafting heavy rock with strong, distinctive hooks." As epitaphs go, a band could do much worse.

But when I asked guitarist/vocalist Lucas last week about shelving his Chicago-area band given the events of 2013, he said he never seriously considered it. "This would be the second time in my life where I would sort of think that," he said. But "at this point it's kind of hard to separate myself from the band. When I'm dead, you won't have to wonder what I thought and what was going through my mind. All you have to do is put on these records, and you'd know. ... This has never been a job for me. I honestly don't know what else I would do. It is part of me, and it always has been."

Would you like to see a photo of perhaps the happiest child in the world?

If so, I'll direct you to the Web site of Grammy-winning zydeco musician Terrance Simien, the latest artist-in-residence for the Mississippi Valley Blues Society's Blues in the Schools program. Land on the home page at TerranceSimien.com, click on the "Creole for Kidz" tab, and check out the picture of the little boy - he looks about three or four - photographed at one of Simien's concerts. You'll have no trouble knowing which kid I'm referring to: He's wearing a red Spider-Man T-shirt, holding a gold-bead necklace, and boasting what might be the most infectiously joyful smile you've ever seen.

"That's the zydeco smile, man!" says Simien, with a laugh, when I reference the child's photo during our recent phone interview. "You get that, man! You get that when you hear the music. You just start smiling, and people start dancing ... . That's what that music does to you!"

Photos from the Communion Tour concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn on October 17, 2013, featuring The4onthefloor, Willy Mason, Dustin Smith & the Sunday Silos, and Hugh Bob & the Hustle. For more work by Matt Erickson, visit MRE-Photography.com.

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