December 14, 2007

Most of the jam out of Shem-Rah is forgettable. That is, until the last few minutes. Around the 13-minute mark, they develop a neat little groove that features Magner eventually jumping on to his “sonar” lead as some have called it. Barber has this great riff where he replays a hammer-on, and Brownstein and Allen hold down the pocket really well. The rest of this up through the transition to Boop is very solid. Wish this part of the jam was longer, but it is what it is. The Boop jam begins with the usual funk nonsense which goes absolutely nowhere. However, they eventually transition uptempo into a dance jam, and this gets really great, even if it’s essentially a long Abraxas intro. The section after 13:00 is particularly great, especially what Magner is doing around 14:51. Awesome. The Abraxas jam is absolutely fantastic. The band crafts a multi-chord progression that features some great minimalist play from Barber and phenomenal pad work from Magner. Wonderful, beautiful stuff. I wound up counting the very brief “solo” section of Where the Streets Have no Name as a jam here, though it should be noted it’s short and worthless. Home Again is just one long, meandering jam. None of this jam did anything for me at all. 42, on the other hand, has a very good jam. They build this really patiently, and Magner utilizes the angel choir patch in a unique way here. This eventually winds up in a I-VI progression that feels like they could easily start up Caterpillar ending at any moment. The jam out of Boom Shanker is mostly awful. Marc seems determined to shoehorn in one of his go to “dub” basslines, all of which just lead absolutely nowhere. Magner tries to pull the band from this mundanity, with little success. The jam gets marginally more interesting as they drop back into a dance jam. Allen drops the e-kick and also brings in other e-drums, including thirst quenchers here and there. The last several minutes of this are solid, and worthy of a relisten, provided you skip the 10+ minutes which precede them. Highwire is standard and jamless.

Highlights: SRB, Boop, Abraxas**, 42