With a new band at his back for 2024, Robby Krieger continues exploring the fusion music that’s characterized his post-Doors career. 

The eponymous Robby Krieger & the Soul Savages is a 10-track instrumental LP that finds the titular composer and guitarist leading keyboardist Ed Roth, bassist Kevin “Brandino” Brandon and drummer Franklin Vanderbilt as they burrow deeply into a groove whose walls are caked with neo-jazz, funk and soul  on such titles as “Shark Skin Suit,” “Contrary Motion” and “Math Problem.”

Krieger plays slide, traditional leads and chorded rhythm against his tight band and hits peaks on the soulful “A Day in L.A.” and the funky strut of “Bouncy Betty;” “Ricochet Rabbit,”meanwhile, could be easily misidentified as an outtake from Steely Dan’s Gaucho sessions. 

A strong showing, indeed. And anyone who enjoys what they hear here should look back to 2020’s Zappaesque the Ritual Begins at Sundown to hear the former psychedelic warrior Krieger at his jazziest peak.