February 20, 2015

Triumph has what sounds like a World is Spinning jam in it. Eh. Rock Candy has a decent jam. They tease the transition to Shadow about 5 minutes early, then jam another 2 minutes before re-segueing into Shadow. Why? The jam out of Shadow is beautiful Blissco and I absolutely adore this jam. This is awesome. The jam inside Astronaut is forgettable, as is the jam out.

A Fifth of Beethoven is such a perfect cover for this band. The SRB jam is meh, till the end where they have kinda a 70s disco feeling jam. The Confro jam has some great minimalist forms from Barber and solid leads from Magner. They really devolve from here, and are pretty directionless for a pretty long time. Around the 13:50 mark they drop to half-time and suddenly an absolutely beautiful theme just develops instantly. It’s remarkable how this band can be so boring and so amazing in adjacent moments. This is amazing Blissco and the entire band is on point here. The only thing I wish would be different is Barber’s tone (shocking, I know). Incidentally, when they finish with this section, they get into a dissonant, dark jam that’s faster paced. This is solid, although not nearly as much so as the portion that preceded it. The Spraypaint jam begins with a fairly forgettable theme, then Allen drops the hammer in the form of his e-kick. Around the 10:30 mark, Magner has a great little sine-wave lead melody. Unfortunately, they ditch this pretty quickly, and the rest of the jam certainly gets more intense, but not necessarily more interesting. Shem-Rah ending is nice; remember when they were so terrified of playing this, for years? 7-11 towel jam is meh, and the second jam doesn’t do much for me either. IRW encore is standard.

Highlights: Shadow**, Confrontation**