February 07, 2009

Kitchen Mitts is jamless. The jam out of Papercut is 11 minutes long or so. The first half of this jam is basically a filler jam, that sounds like the band is just sort of noodling around at this tempo. Around the 11-minute mark they start shifting uptempo. After shifting uptempo, they basically do a 5-minute long build/peak. While I wouldn’t normally count this as a highlight, this is pretty well done, and what I like more is that it’s really not a build or peak into anything. They simply drop into the beginning of Digital Buddha. Sometimes it feels like they rely too much on inverted versions of songs in order to develop peaks. So I’ll give it to them this time for simply doing a peak and drop. The Buddha jam begins with Magner on an arpeggiator and Brownstein using his sub bass effect. I thought this jam was mostly good, even if it was incredibly safe. The entire thing sounds like they are headed to the ending of Buddha, with very little deviation therefrom. That said, Magner has some great melodic work here atop his arpeggiator. I almost wish Magner had used a different tone, because the sine wave that he’s using doesn’t quite cut through the mix enough. It’s still audible, but could be better. That said, there’s some solid interplay between he and barber throughout this jam. M80 is jamless. Magellan‘s first jam is 4-5 minutes or so, and so long as you like straightforward Magellan jams, you’ll be fine with this. Not a lot of new ground being covered here. The second Magellan jam begins mostly the same, but then around the 14-minute mark, the band shifts uptempo into a dance jam, and Magner tips the band’s hand to Abraxas. The rest of this is basically just an intro jam into Abraxas. Meh. The return jam to Magellan is not much more interesting. Have a Cigar is jamless, although it’s always interesting to listen to other guitar players play with Barber. Haynes is clearly more “technically” gifted than Barber, but he’ll never come close to being as interesting a player as Barber is (to me, of course). Rivers has the usual 2-3 minute jam, although I really like some of the harmonizing that Barber and Magner do during the peak/ending section. Helicopters has a driving dance jam with Magner on the arpeggiator right out of the gate (no pun intended). Brownstein has some great basslines here, and Barber is mostly focused with minimal guitar riffs. Allen drops some e-drums almost right away, and Magner follows suit with some great danceable melodies. This is nothing special by any means, but a solid dance jam.

Highlights: Papercut, Buddha, Helix