LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT

A very good progressive rock album

In just five days this was written and recorded.. I don't want to believe that. Knowing that, it is safe to say that each member is extremely in tune with their respective instrument and work together very well for complete strangers (except for Petrucci and Portnoy). Why couldn't they spend maybe seven or eight days and make a perfect album?

Speaking of which, we have just four members for this instrumental album. Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci from Dream Theater on the drums and guitar respectively. Jordan Rudess who came from the Dixie Dregs and the Rod Morgenstein project on keyboards and the legend, Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, just about everything else), on chapman stick.

If you have members from Dream Theater, you can expect to have technically demanded riffs and solo's, which is exactly what will happen. Although on this project, there will be more influences, like classical and jazz, which would never come from the Dream Theater side of the band. We also get some improve, thanks to Tony Levin, especially in the track 'Three Minute Warning'

There are some tracks on here that are undeniably classic like 'Paradigm Shift' and 'Universal Mind', that are mostly guitar driven, but just great pieces within themselves. There is a very jazzy piece called 'Osmosis', but the highlight of the track is the percussion which is done all too well by Portnoy. Other then that there is nothing truly excellent on this album. You will hear to utterly horrible tracks like 'The Stretch' and 'Chris and Kevin's Excellent Adventure' that are only two minutes a piece.leading me to suspect they were filler. The only other track that I don't quite agree with is the +28 minute track 'Three Minute Warning'. It's really not bad for an improve piece, but can I listen to it twice a day? Never. A Week? Never. A month? Possible. I just has high and lows, something that doesn't click if you're aiming for a lengthy piece. The other tracks on the album 'Kindred Spirits', 'Freedom of Speech' and 'State of Grace' are all pretty good tracks. Lots of great guitar/keyboard interludes and duets like in 'State of Grace', which was even done on the Petrucci and Rudess 'An Evening With.' album.

If you are a Dream Theater fan like me, you will like this one. For just about anyone wanting complex instrumental music.you can find a few tracks on here you can applaud. It's a very good album, just not excellent enough. Again, why five days?

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