March 17, 2008

Most of the opening jam is forgettable, and significant chunks are flat out bad. The first 5-10 minutes sound like a novice jamband doing a wannabe “space” jam for a while. Gross. The last few minutes are fine, but otherwise this was unpleasant to listen to. Spy gets extended in several places. Starting at the 4:20 mark, the band plays an actual jam inside of Spy. This lasts a few minutes, and while it’s not terribly interesting, I’m happy to hear them actually try it. The towel jam steps outside of its usual type 1 box into an uptempo reggae jam that has a really neat vibe to it. You can almost feel Barber doing his two-step during this jam. There’s something really hypnotic about this groove, and even though I’m not a huge fan of Barber’s tone here, I like the jam a lot. Around the 10-minute mark they ditch this groove for a totally different jam. The second half of this jam is wholly forgettable. First Memphis jam is an e-drum heavy “hip-hop” jam, but most of this just goes absolutely nowhere. The second Memphis jam begins with a jam that almost sounds like they’re going to play “Sweet Dreams,” but it never really comes to fruition. In any event, I enjoyed this and it had a really nice pocket to it for good portions of the jam. Around the 19-minute mark, they have a really neat vibe going on, with the spacey theme from Barber combining with Magner’s plucky, textural synths for a really cool effect. The Abraxas jam begins with some potential. There’s some neat interplay between Magner and Barber, and Magner busts out the angel choir early on. However, this just never really comes together in my opinion. The Lunar Pursuit jam has an interesting tom-heavy jam coming out of it. While this turns into a cool segue into IRW, the jam itself is just too short. Barber (sort of) teases Spacebirdmatingcall during the intro IRW, which is a cool little mashup.

Highlights: 7-11 (1*), Memphis (2*)