June 02, 2017

The Shem-Rah intro jam is really cool. It has this spacey rock feel to it, and features Magner using his vocoder in a really cool, tripped out way. This jam really has zero connection to SRB, so it’s not a true intro jam, really more of a standalone jam preceding SRB. The jam out of SRB has a spacey dance feel to it. Barber here is content to sit back in the mix and let Magner have his way with the upper register. The Rainbow Song jam starts out with the typical downtempo jam, and quickly turns into a dance jam. This is surprisingly good, and again Barber is mostly restrained and content to let Magner lead. Fine by me. The Grass is Green jam sounds like an SITA jam right out of the gate. This is fairly short-lived, and I might even count this as a “fakeout” of sorts, since it was so clearly alluding to SITA. They wind up landing on another spacey dance jam, with Magner having another set of neat little leads on the top end. Like the SRB and Rainbow Song jams, there is no reinventing the wheel going on here, but it’s solid. Dribble is fine. KOTW has two distinct jams. The first is a really cool Blissco jam that regrettably only lasts a few minutes. Regardless, it’s a great theme, and worth relistening to. Magner in particular has this very fast two-note riff that is very cool. The second jam here is more of a typical dance jam. This is solid, but not quite as interesting as the Blissco jam preceding it.

The first Jigsaw jam doesn’t do much for me here. It’s not bad by any means, just not something that I would care to relisten to. Same goes for jam out. This jam out of Waves is very jambandy, and this just is not for me. The jam out of Tempest is just okay. I like the segue back into Waves, but not enough to relisten. The jam out of Waves was pretty mundane to me. As they closer to the Jigsaw return, they hit a progression that harkens to a Basis ending, but clearly is not headed there. This ending portion is solid, though the journey to get there is not. I could not care less about a drum solo from Allen. The Buddha jam is very nice. The jam itself is a pretty straightforward trance jam, but Barber’s guitar work during the peak is particularly pleasant. Three Wishes is standard. Don has a relatively uneventful jam.

Highlights: Intro Jam*, SRB, Rainbow Song, KOTW*, Buddha