LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT 2

Ahh, another Liquid Tension Experiment album, this album was released in 1999 when at that time, Dream Theater released their most incredible album, Scenes From A Memory. The personnel of LTE2 were the same with LTE1, John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess, Mike Portnoy and Tony Levin. And as you all know, now Jordan Rudess is one of Dream Theater members.

Just for your information Liquid Tension Experiment was a band that created as a side project. When it formed, Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci were in Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess worked with Rod Morgenstein and Tony Levin worked with his own band and Bruford Levin Upper Extremities. Now, as Jordan Rudess is in Dream Theater, there is no possibility that there will be Liquid Tension Experiment 3, as ¾ of the members are in Dream Theater, just like Mike Portnoy said on many interviews.

If you have the album, you could see on the cover where each member wrote a short story behind each song. There, you can imagine the fun and amazing recording session in the making of LTE 2. John Petrucci himself said this was probably the hardest and the most challenging album he has ever made. I can believe that, considering the album is a mixture of Jazz Fusion, Classical and Progressive Metal, if you want a comparison, Planet X. What I like is, although the songs are improvisation without any rehearsal or anything, they still can manage the quality of the songs. Moreover, with ultimate techniques, these people could create such amazing songs with great feeling in each song.

The album was also being John Petrucci's important diary, as when they created this album, his third daughter, Kiara was born. He then put this event into a song title "When The Water Breaks", you know, the water, breaks. This song is also the longest song in the album, about sixteen minutes. But probably the most recognizable song is Acid Rain as Dream Theater has played this song at many of their concert (seems no problem for John Myung). There are two songs that were created through digital manipulation, Chewbacca and Liquid Dreams, really amazing. And, last but not least, the most beautiful and melodic song in the album, which is the last track, Hourglass. The guitar part was an acoustic guitar with piano keyboard and was a live session. John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess stated that this song was influenced by a song in LTE1, State Of Grace, which is also a very beautiful song. John Petrucci said, "I feel the intimacy and mood was really captured here. The mixture of classical and jazz changes make this one both interesting harmonically and melodically moving to me."

So, in the end, with all my expressions above, I wish I could give 7 stars, so I give 5 giant stars. A masterpiece of progressive music just like its predecessor, Liquid Tension Experiment 1. Ohh, yeah, LTE2 is more complex (in my opinion) that one of the issue is that the making of this album took nearly a month, while LTE1 was made in just A WEEK, amazing eh?

Keep On Proggin' In The Free World!!

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