THE INNER MOUNTING FLAME

What we have here is a case of intense jazz fusion. All five members of the band are more than competent on their respective instruments and aren't afraid to annoy you with the ridiculous amount of notes they can play in a matter of just a few seconds. Over-soloing for the sake of it doesn't always make good music, but the musical lines underneath the soloing are what get my attention most and the primary cause of my positive remarks. The underpinning rhythms make the solos much better/less offensive (to me). The only time I feel it gets carried away is ''Awakening'' where everybody solos at once; it's a little too much for me to stomach, but at least a good chunk of the rest of the song is sound to my ears.

INNER MOUNTING FLAME seems to alternate between louder songs and softer/smoother ones. It starts off with (probably) the most intense song (and my personal favourite) ''Meeting of the Spirits'', followed by a smoother jazzy song in ''Dawn'', brought back to intensity with ''Noonward Race'', then it goes completely soft with ''A Lotus on Irish Streams'', you get the idea. Yeah, it sounds very predictable and formulaic, but give it a try and see if you can make as much sense of the album as I did.

No need to really go too much in depth (track-by-track); I've already tried to explain the dynamics of the thing, the pieces have plenty of odd metres in them, and the soloing goes without question. It's more intense than regular fusion, so that alone ought to make you try it. The best way to see if you'll like the album is to listen to the mp3 of ''Meeting of the Spirits''.