December 29, 2012

Awol’s Blues is not for me. Next. The Strobelights jam has two very distinct themes. The first is a dark sounding, creepy jam, highlighted by Magner’s sort of electronic organ sound. This is a really neat jam, and has sort of a Middle Eastern vibe to it throughout. Around the 8:30 mark, the band shifts gears, and they head toward more of a straightforward dance jam. Straightforward though it may be, this is still really solid and has a fantastic pocket that the band locks into right away. The synth and melody Magner begins using around 12:30 is all-around wonderful, and showcases his ability to just conjure leads that are interesting, novel, and familiar all at the same time. The first I-Man jam is a short type 1 jam that has Brownstein teasing a Ladies peak. Second jam has some potential as Magner is playing a great little theme, but it’s way, way too short, and returns to I-Man without much development. Third jam initially doesn’t move me, but should be noted that there are heavy Shimmy teases from Brownstein. They eventually drop to half-time to prepare for DOTSPF, and Barber hits on a beautiful melody. The 21-minute mark is where he really nails this after dancing around it for several bars. This almost feels like it might be a tease of something, but I have no idea what it is. Either way, it’s wonderful. The rest of this segment (DOTSPF > I-Man > Strobelights) is forgettable. Wet > Ape > Wet is nearly jamless.

House Dog > Confrontation is the type of segue that on paper freaks me out. Knowing that they’re going to go from 5/4 to 4/4 often means that they get stuck on the time signature transition, and it winds up really sloppy. In this case the transition to 4/4 was seamless, and I think the peak here is really solid. However, the jam is vanilla. The jam out of Confrontation is excellent. They have a portion with a nice breakdown where the drums drop out completely, only to re-build. They develop a fantastic theme and build here, primarily using Barber as rhythm guitar, Magner as rhythm/lead on synth. They trade off nicely, and this again transitions back to the 5/4 time signature (mostly) nicely. The ending peak is alright. I love that they outro HDPF here, and there are heavy Kamaole Sands teases from Brownstein. That said, this is a pretty corny jam, and not in a good way. Very jammy. Meh. Boop has a very fast, thematic jam. This is not all that convincing a theme to me, however. It’s a four-chord progression, but they drop into it so quickly it feels a little forced. The jam out of Boop into Tricycle again feels a little forced. They stay in the Boop funk jam for about a minute before headed to the Tricycle progression. Let these things breathe, FFS. Don’s jam sounds honestly like it’s headed for HDPF ending somehow, or that sort of vibe. Instead, they veer at the last minute and head back toward the major key territory of I-Man’s ending. I was nonplussed by this jam. Neither good nor bad. Lai basically is a 5-minute jam of Barber soloing. I think Brownstein and Magner play this well, but Barber is done for the night.

Highlights: Strobelights, I-Man, Confrontation