LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT

Possibly the result of their label suppressing the rock on Falling into Infinity, Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci teamed up with Tony Levin and Jordan Rudess to make an album of all-out instrumental fusion jam power. While the material on Liquid Tension Experiment's debut borders on cheesy sometimes and borders on useless other times, it borders on brilliance the rest of the time and it makes sure that everyone knows that the boiz hadn't lost their sense of technicality all together (though it does also let everyone know that the inconsistency was at least partly their own fault). On the back insert of the CD, it says "CAUTION: "Three Minute Warning" is not for the musically faint-hearted, impatient, or critics of extreme self-indulgence. If you fall into any of the above categories, please hit the stop button on your CD player after track # 8." The same statement could probably be made about the whole album, though. No doubt, however, that "Three Minute Warning" is the most difficult thing to get into on this disc. It takes some serious rock balls to record a near-30-minute improvisation in the studio and release it, and really, I think that's the only redeeming quality about the track. There are obviously some good moments, but as a whole it's not worth anyone's time. At least the rest of the album is worth a few people's time.

Here are the good things that resulted from Liquid Tension Experiment:

1. "Paradigm Shift" and "Universal Mind," then "Acid Rain," "Another Dimension and "When the Water Breaks"

2. After rejecting the band in the past, Jordan Rudess finally realized that Dream Theater was right for him, which as we all know leads to a slew of fantastic songs, albums and live performances.

The performance value of this album is of course ridiculously high, but while Dream Theater uses their musical abilities to write diverse, complex and ultimately meaningful songs, Liquid Tension Experiment is more for fun and is therefore less captivating and memorable. The production is poor and often makes the stuff sound cheesy (certainly some of the riffs are cheesy in nature, though). It's a good album for fun, for driving or whatever, but it's not going to be one you attach yourself to in any way. Also, a lot of these riffs make for great jam riffs; any players might want to take a look at these tracks for some fun riffs to learn and jam to. Those who are strictly listeners I would advist to skip this one (save for maybe "Paradigm Shift" and "Universal Mind") and listen to the follow-up. Though it does run into the same problems as this one, it's much more consistent.