December 27, 2013

Eulogy is standard. Reactor has a dark, dissonant jam that embodies the “evil” sound that this band can be sound effective at Conjuring. Very good stuff. The jam after Reactor starts way cooler than it ends. The first few minutes have a really cool vibe to them. However, around the 4:30 mark, Brownstein comes up with this bassline he sits on for like 6 minutes. This turns into a pretty mediocre funk jam. The SITA jam is different. This is not the usual ethereal jam, but instead is a dancy jam featuring Magner on vocoder repeating “suspended in the air” over and over again. This is bordering on the mediocre funk found in a lot of Story jams, but remains interesting throughout most of it. Incidentally, the jam out of Story is one of the few Story jams that I feel hits its stride instantly. Barber has some great phrasing and Magner’s clav is well-placed here. They develop a pretty huge peak before dropping into Spacebird. Spacebird’s jam begins with an awesome, digital theme. The whole band is playing around with weird sounds, and they seem fine here with just getting weird with this one. I’m here for it. They develop a really nice groove, punctuated by Brownstein’s low-end and Allen’s e-kick. This is great, but unfortunately they ditch this portion of the jam for a more straightforward dance jam. Shame, as this could have been incredible, instead of just being pretty good. As a side note, Barber is godawful during this peak.

On Time is a boring, long type 1 jam. The Vassillios jam is frustrating. They clearly lock in, and they’re communicating really well. However, the theme is just not compelling in any way. Minions has a type 1 jam that lasts way too long, though it does ultimately branch out. I don’t find this all that interesting, however. Rock Candy, on the other hand, is very interesting from the very start of the jam. This has a lot digital effects from Magner and Allen, and this whole jam is great. Very spacey and dancy at the same time. The jam out of Tricycle back into Rock Candy doesn’t do much for me. Home Again encore has a typical type 1 jam.

Highlights: Reactor*, Astronaut, Story, SBMC, Rock Candy*