December 14, 2019

Resurrection > 4th of July > I-Man is ultimately forgettable. I thought a couple spots in a couple of the I-Man jams were getting interesting, but they never develop into anything worth re-listening. I was happy that they didn’t just do a “drop segue” out of 4th of July where they just start I-Man. The intro jam wasn’t great, but it at least existed. Shimmy is the first spot in the show that grabbed my attention. There’s a nice dark jam in here, and Magner is playing around with some plucky synths. WLTP is great, and extremely digital. Effects and synths galore. I’m not sure exactly what Barber’s setup is at present, but clearly he’s controlling a VST or something via his guitar. I will say that I vividly remember that he was using several presets years ago when he had the keyboard, and that seems to be the case here. I still like this, but knowing how the sausage is made makes me like it a little less. Spend 5 minutes and create a patch of your own. I saw the Waves track listed at 43 minutes and got very excited. Then I realized that probably 20 minutes of that would be the Tractorbeam Jam which is not tracked out, and I got disappointed. The Waves jam is well-played, and has a nice improvised peak. If there’s one great thing about these Tractorbeam jams, it’s that the band is “allowed” to break down into an ambient jam, which means that they can create peaks that don’t need to be forced into any particular song’s peak. Gives them some interesting freedom which they take full advantage of here. I didn’t find anything all that interesting in the Anthem > Clocks section, and Morph is about the typical Morph jam I’d expect. The first Ladies jam is short, but effective. They lock into a great pocket, and Barber is playing exactly the kind of minimalist lick-based jamming that he ought to all the time. Good stuff. The rest of the encore is fine. I should mention that Stars > Ladies sounds so smooth, it feels like the peak jam was written for something like this. Not something I’d listen to again and again, but very enjoyable.

Highlights: Shimmy,* WLTP**, Waves, Ladies