April 27, 2006

astronaut ~> confrontation ~> astronaut !!!!!!!! , hope ~> buddha & rc ~> cyclone ~> rc

That's what you need to know.

Voices begins with a 2-minute long ambient jam which is absolutely beautiful. Magellan has a 2-3 minutes long tom jam before the Magellan riff comes back a single time. This goes on another few minutes and is mostly fine. The second Magellan jam is airy, and patient from the entire band. Brownstein and Allen communicate really well here, and Allen’s fills add a lot to the jam. This is by no means “best ever” stuff, but really satisfying to hear them craft a drawn-out Magellan jam like this. Astronaut has an extended SITA jam, though they stick to the type 1 structure for all of this. This is very pretty, but far too similar to basically every other SITA jam to be a highlight. The Astronaut jam here is dark and ominous in a great way. The Confro jam is forgettable.

Hope is jammed out for the first time with Allen, which is neat. The jam is a little too jambandy for me without being interesting. The segue into Buddha is neat, but the jam preceding it is less than memorable. Buddha is fine, solid. Nothing here that stands out to me too much, but didn’t actively dislike this. Sort of a party vibe but without the substance. Memphis first jam is pretty straightforward. Meh. Second jam leads really well back to Hope, but is otherwise not a standout. The jam out of Rock Candy is pretty obviously headed for Cyclone from the start. However, Barber’s work here is so wonderful that I’m going to note it as a highlight. This is a perfect example of when a type 1 jam, or a “peak” jam can be great, even if it’s obvious what the band is doing and where they’re going. I wish I could say the same about the Cyclone jam. It’s obvious that they’re headed back to Rock Candy from the start, but they do nothing interesting with the transition. The Ladies encore sounds like Brownstein is teasing Spaga at one point, but other than this it felt like the band never really got on the same page here. Magner in particular felt like he was just trying to do way too much.

Highlights: Voices (Intro**), Magellan (2), Astronaut (2), Rock Candy