PROBING TRANQUILITY

Probing Tranquility was written and performed by only one man, Luke Jaeger, founder of Sleep Terror; after losing their singer and drummer, he was the only member left, and he decided to continue to pursue his musical ambitions by himself (I have no idea if he's looking for replacements). I'm not even sure if he'll be able to find people to play this music. This album is comprised of flurries of shredding, chugging and random jazz, funk, synth, or clean guitar segments that can be anywhere from one chord, to a few notes backed by the most ridiculous drum programming I think I've ever heard. I'm wondering if he's doing this because he doesn't want an actual drummer to play with him or if no drummers want to play with him because he's doing this. I now recall that the drummer was no longer in the band because he was having trouble playing their music. But then again, this is typical grindcore drumming, so I suppose there's got to be someone out there who can and will play this with him. But you know that whenever Luke shares the new songs with the drummer, that guy is guarenteed to give him the you've got to be kidding me expression at least a couple of times.

What I appreciate about this is that Luke is clearly not taking himelf very seriously and is trying to have some fun. Every song will have you giggling with the nutty juxtapositions of Necrophagist-metal and/or Malmsteen-metal, and whatever random ideas the guy wants to throw in here and there (as stated earlier). However, the novelty does wear off after about 6-8 songs. Getting through the rest of the album will be easy enough - it's only about 30 minutes total in length - but it's likely that you're only going to do it once. The music has no lasting power, but I am certainly going to share it with more people than, say, PsyOpus. It's goofy, but it doesn't seem like a joke, and it can be a fun listen, especially if you're sharing it with somebody. You won't get attached to it at all, and the quality of the recording is pretty crappy, but it's still something to hear. It's not quite worth 3 stars, but it's better than 2. So at least for the time being, I'm going to rate it at 3 stars.