Early into “Live at the Halt” it becomes clear that the Smoke Jaguar duo have made a confident leap on from their debut. That disc’s heavy debt to Japan’s free-rock legends is still here, but this live set is more a raging campaign of unstable currents than it is homage. Influences slip away in the downpour of shattering guitar sonics, thick curled feedback lines like tree roots move seemingly of their own will neglecting the possibility of any kind of musical path. Sorry to harp on about the (imagined?) Japan connection, but Smoke Jaguar’s fierce-brained rock doesn’t sound like it has roots in Europe, nevermind their native Glasgow. Its not all boiling-point restraint of intensity though, there’s the redemptive haunt of drone sitting tense at the back of a large section of this. Smoke Jaguar’s playing is somewhere on that fine, fine line between benign energy and unavoidable matter. 8/10 -- Scott McKeating (18 March, 2009)