TOGETHER

Very, very cool stuff. Jane is an extremely guitar driven band, and after reading that in their description I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to get into this album. Straight guitar- rock without a lot of variation has never been my cup of tea. Jane, however, infuses their music with a heavy dose of psychedelia and the playing on this album is so good that it's more than engaging enough to make up for a slight lack of variety in the song structures.

"Daytime" begins the album with some very faint bass notes, though organ is added almost immediately and drums and guitar enter almost immediately. From there the track develops into something that sounds like a cross between Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. It's a spaced- out, wide open track with vocals that work perfectly and (per my previous Hendrix comparison) some absolutely amazing guitar. The main guitar melody gives the track a slightly eastern feel, as well. In my mind "Daytime" is exactly how psychedelic heavy music should sound: lots of room for solos and jamming but never repetitive to the point of being boring. Stellar opener.

"Wind" is next, and it begins by launching into a Zeppelin-esque guitar part almost immediately and adding organ not soon after. After this introduction section (which goes on just a smidge too long), this motif is quickly switched into a much slower, heavier mode for the vocals to enter. The vocalist here is really excellent, belting out raw, powerful vocals that can stand up there with the best of them. Another awesome guitar solo comes next, and after that's done the song returns to its original riff and stays there until the end of the song.

"Try to Find" is much more of a ballad than the previous tracks. The first part of the track eschews electric guitars entirely in favor of calmer acoustic and relatively gentle vocals. Unsurprisingly, this doesn't last long and we're treated to another ripping guitar solo before transitioning into a bluesy section led by some more great vocals. Another solo section closes out the track with some of the best shredding on the album.

"Spain" begins with an (unsurprisingly) Spanish sounding guitar part. Before long the organ takes a rare leading moment and the song brings forth the best vocal melody thus far on the album. This gives way to a driving drum and bass part with some (surprise, surprise) guitar soloing over it. I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here, but don't get the impression that this album is ever repetitive or uninteresting. While most of the songs are driven by the soloing, it's all absolutely brilliant and the guitarist manages to capture many different feels so that every song feels fresh and intriguing. "Spain" concludes with another great vocal section and an excellent guitar fade out. In my experience it's hard to make bluesy, guitar based rock interesting for ten minutes (in my opinion anyway), but "Spain" pulls it off brilliantly and it's a worthy epic.

The title track starts off on a calmer note after the frenetic finish of "Spain." For once the vocals are the dominating force over the guitar, though of course there's still a short solo at the end of the song. It really is a testament to Jane's songwriting and playing abilities that they were able to make so many songs cut from the same cloth and still have the album as a whole sound so passionate and powerful, and a big part of that is that this album features some of the best psychedelic guitar playing I've ever heard, bar none.

And on that note, "Hangman" features everything you could ever want from a trippy, acid- drenched guitar voyage. The song begins with a great vocal section, as has been the norm, but about 3 and a half minutes in the vocals stop, the bass picks up and the guitarist absolutely lets loose, which is all the more impressive given how well he's played thus far. Fully five minutes of amazing, psychedelic guitar make up the majority of the track before a brief vocal section closes out the album.

Overall, while this album is perhaps a little homogenous, it's one of the absolute best guitar albums I've ever heard, which is quite impressive given the surplus of great guitarists in prog music. In the past I've had a lot of problems getting into the kind of psychedelic bluesy rock this group plays, but Jane pulls it off maybe better than any band I've ever heard. Great, great, psychedelic heavy prog.

4.5/5, rounded up