December 12, 2019

TVM > Anthem > TVM > Tempest is a sequence of forgettable music. I’m not a big TVM guy in general (in terms of the jams; generally I enjoy the song), and this is why. The jam back into TVM can be fantastic at times, but this is not one of them. The jam out of Tempest is fantastic. Starts out thematic, with a multi-chord progression. Then it just gets flat-out weird. I love it. Magner and Allen are both toying around with a bunch of different sounds and textures. Great stuff. The Air Song > Rocket Science > Voices segment seems to have a grand total of 8 or 9 minutes of improv. There’s nothing awful here, but this is just too much song-to-improv for my tastes. I won’t lie – a more cynical version of me would say this Minions jam is corny. And it probably is corny. But I unironically love it. Very ethereal, and has Magner messing around with a vocoder. I like this a lot. The ambient jam in Abyss is phenomenal as usual, and I really enjoy most of the Tractorbeam jam. The jams into Tricycle and then into RLH are both adequate, but nothing special.

Highlights: Tempest*, Minions*, Abyss*