MYSTERIOUS TRIANGLE - SPECIAL LIVE,VOL.2

I'm afraid I can't see anything "special" about this one - it's yet another terrible yawn-fest that fits perfectly into Ain Soph's uncannily dull discography. Whatever signs of life their music may have shown on '5 evolved from 9' turned out to be a false alarm, as "Mysterious Triangle" joins "Marine Menagerie" and "Ride on a Camel" as one of the most boring releases of all time. The spark that kept their Canterbury-esque first two albums is long gone, and in it's place is a cold, predictable jazz fusion of the worst kind.

The first two tracks somehow manage to create an impression that the band is heading somewhere - at least there are a couple memorable motifs in each. But the corny intro melody of the title track signifies a return to the band's completely monotonous style of Camel-meets-Return to Forever. From there, the album revolves around throwaway riffs, painfully repetitive tonality shifts and, of course, lot's of uninspired soloing. While I still admire the band's impressive technical abilities on their respective instruments, their improvisations feature none of the creativity exhibited by players like Holdsworth or the jazz greats. Besides, even Coltrane probably wouldn't have been able to sound inspired on a record like this. And the last two tracks had already appeared on their previous efforts - why the band felt the need to extend their album by a further 20 minutes is beyond me. But Ain Soph always were (and are, since they've recently reunited) primarily a live band, and "Mysterious Triangle" yet again confirms my conviction that they should've limited themselves to live shows.

A perfect album to fall asleep to.