April 19, 2001

Story has a strong but somewhat short trance build to a Helicopters intro. Helicopters has an interesting jam, starting off as a standard trance vehicle, but soon building into a more guitar-heavy bliss theme. The peak is strong, and the jam is interesting (even if it is short). Crater provides a solid 12 minutes of Crater. The first jam in Jigsaw has a hypnotic repeating theme, which breaks off and spaces out before a quick build to the chase section. The second jam has an infectious Barber riff over an eerie atmosphere. The final jam in Jigsaw has an excellent atmospheric jam dominated by a hypnotic Brownstein riff and minimalist playing from the other three. Some gorgeous ambient themes are toyed with, before the band builds up to a smooth and mellow segue into Lai. Lai is a cool full-band jam with a strong peak, but overall nothing special.

The Hot Air Balloon jam breaks down pretty quickly into a kind of mellow type one. This theme doesn’t do much for me and pretty quickly makes a return to the HAB peak. The peak is solid and the flight section is standard. Shimmy is a strong spring 01 version, with a mellow, blissful theme from Barber and Magner over the type one bass. It gradually creeps toward darkness, building to a strong ending. The Shimmy ending composition breaks down into a playful groove during the final verse, building up to a quick Basis intro. The middle jam is disappointingly absent. The main jam features an excellent theme with excellent interplay, which breaks down around 15:30. It rebuilds with drive to a more intense, somewhat melancholy passage. The band keeps this theme going strong for a long time, building up to a stunning peak. The key change, and ultimately the Basis ending, comes very gradually. Basis is jammed out of the closing riff, and the transition out of the song into the jam section is pulled off very well. The jam has a short, tense groove before a smooth segue into Confro. The Confro jam is mellow and expansive, and builds to a strong peak. Barfly is standard.

3/5, but closer to a 2.5. The Basis is excellent, and there are some highlights scattered throughout, but the Shimmy > Basis > Confro wasn’t nearly as strong as I had hoped, and there is a lot of filler.

Stray Observations: There are “Little Bunny Foo Foo” teases in the flight section of HAB.