From NPR:
That Bad Plus “sound” offers little in the way of jazz as popularly imagined. The band’s compositions, which come from all three members, have a sophisticated architecture; they also have an impish, understated glee that can be mistaken for irony (“Beryl Loves to Dance,” “My Friend Metatron”). There are big, throbbing beats (“Never Stop”), free-improv spasms (“2 p.m.”), non-bluesy but harmonically intriguing chord voicings (like, everything). It’s an improvising piano-bass-drums group — a celebrated jazz layout, with musicians fluent in the standard tongues of jazz — which probably wouldn’t mind if you called it a weirdo instrumental rock band.