OMAR RODRIGUEZ LOPEZ & JOHN FRUSCIANTE

For an album that's a collaboration between two great and often very intense guitarists, the sound explored here is something that I really didn't expect to hear by any means, even if I have no complaints about it at the end of the day. Rather than something more akin to a fast paced jam session between Omar Rodriguez Lopez and John Frusciante, what we get here is an extremely subtle, subdued experience that shows both musicians playing off each other in a variety of interesting ways while synths and strange effects are being applied to add further texture to the album. As a whole this is actually a really interesting album in ways that aren't typically explored in your typical Omar album, focusing heavily on a sense of hypnotic repetition where the small variations of a core idea are presented to the listener, with understanding these minor, minimalistic progressions being the main draw and seeing how it all interacts with these background effects that feel almost detached from the core compositions in many cases, but occasionally end up phasing in and perfectly weaving in with all the other scattered elements going on. Definitely not an album that I'd consider to be representative of the sound of either guitarist that plays here, but I don't really see that as a bad thing especially when what's done here feels as interesting and engaging as it does. A soothing, rewarding experience that has a lot more to offer than it might at first seem.