September 28, 2008

The Memphis first jam is a lot of Barber noodling that doesn’t leads anywhere all that interesting. The second jam at least has a solid groove and features Barber showing a lot more restraint. The last few minutes have a great theme with some solid communication between Barber and Magner. The arpeggio melody that Magner hits near the end of this is absolutely glorious. After they shift uptempo for the switch to Crickets, the rest of this is fairly straightforward. The Crickets peak is extremely drawn out, and truthfully I felt like this lost a bit of steam, but so be it. The jam out of Crickets is fantastic. This begins with a multi-chord theme from Brownstein, and Brownstein and Magner really carry this jam. Barber has some deedle-dees that in my mind don’t have a ton to the jam, but ultimately they don’t necessarily get in the way either, and sometimes that’s enough. Allen’s drum work here is absolutely phenomenal, and he utilizes an array of e-drums and toms to switch the feel from downtempo to uptempo in a very creative way. The jam in Shelby is about as straightforward as a Shelby jam can get. Allen‘s drum work is fantastic, but overall the jam is forgettable. Crystal ball and Rockefeller are both jamless.

Story begins with the usual funk jam, but eventually turns into a breakbeat jam, complete with a heavy e-drum kick from Allen. I didn’t find much of this jam interesting, however when the track switches to Air Song, they get into a really nice, sublime intro into Air Song. This is not necessarily worth listening to on it’s own, but pretty stuff. The jam out of Air Song weirdly sounds like it’s headed for Shelby for a good chunk of it. This turns into a nice little Blissco jam very briefly, and Barber has a great guitar lick that he plays that I really wish they would have expanded on around the 10-minute mark. Instead, they shift toward a more straightforward jam back into Story. The rest of this is a pretty straightforward dance jam, but is generally solid. The final jam in Magellan is fine.

Highlights: Memphis (2), Crickets**, Air Song