PROBING TRANQUILITY

The continuing evolution of heavy metal is one of the most active in modern music and as it turns out, room for progressive change between the angry chunks of steel was plentiful. Multi-instrumentalist Luke Jaeger (guitars, bass, keys, drum programs) is part of that new voice with a devotion to metallic heaviness but a desire to shake things up a bit. At times his Probing Tranquility - an instrumental meditation on sleep, or the lack of it - can be schizophrenic, breaking into strange modulations or trad jazz chords in among the riffs. But it all works beautifully as a whole with great arithmetic, pointed melodies of shredding guitar layered three or four thick, neo-classical outbreaks, and some great angular squeals.

Each cut sidewinds its way forward, no one track particularly important but rather acting as a single creature, fully unified and a little dangerous. Mr. Jaeger is a determined craftsman who knows precisely what he wants and how to zap it with electricity like some mad doctor... except he's real and will smash your brain. Hints of early Exodus can be heard as well as Metallica's more prog moments and a bit of Malmsteen, though the compositions are far more complex and feature the occasional keyboard sample.

Cerebral. Metal for the mind. A hard-tempered exercise in calculation, discipline and obsessive/compulsive pattern-making, and absolutely tremendous stuff.