July 13, 2017

The Astronaut jam comes out of the SITA section, and turns darker and more exploratory as the band breaks free from the SITA sound. Around the 9-minute mark, they venture into more major-key territory, and for a few minutes it sounds like they might be headed for Story. As they get closer and closer to RLH they hit on some nice Blissco themes that I generally enjoy. I think this could have been nicer, but for an opening Camp jam, not bad. Neither of the RLH jams here do a whole lot for me, and neither is getting far out of the box. At one point it sounds a bit like Magner is teasing Star Wars – not sure if this is intentional or just happenstance. The jam out of Astronaut begins with a multi-chord progression that sounds like they could be headed toward Miracles, based on the intervals Brownstein begins playing. Ultimately, this never really rounds the corner for me, and it feels like the last few minutes they’re just sort of trying to figure out how to get into the beginning of Buddha. The Buddha jam is super high-energy from the start. The music itself isn’t anything too out there, but this is really well-played and they nail the peak. After the ending of Buddha they launch into a very, very short jam into RLH, which is basically just Barber shredding on top of the band. Decent concept, poor execution. Reactor’s jam is forgettable, although the transition into Portal is really awesome. This is more a function of Portal having a wonderful, beautiful chord progression, and so about anything into the Portal ending sounds phenomenal. The jam out and back into Reactor is less than enjoyable. The Home Again jam is just a few minutes, and never has much of a chance to develop into anything interesting.

Highlights: Astronaut, Buddha