Material’s second album marked a huge step forward in conception from the band’s already-impressive debut. Marked by a more sharply defined and aggressive sound and by carefully composed structures, Memory Serves also had a definite No Wave edge to it: George Lewis’s trombone threatens to head off into harmolodic territory at any moment, Fred Frith and Sonny Sharrock trade deeply weird guitar licks, and on “Metal Test” we start to hear the ideas that Frith, bassist Bill Laswell, and drummer Fred Maher will shortly begin fully developing with their Massacre power trio project.