LIQUID TRIO EXPERIMENT: SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

Don't expect the juggernaut that was Portnoy, Levin, Rudess and Petrucci, this is a much different animal. Without serious direction - or a guitar to cut through and provide a rock dimension - it is what it purports to be; a jam session. If you can make it past the painful 'Chris and Kevin's Bogus Journey' (a follow-up to the equally painful 'Chris and Kevin's Excellent Adventure' from their debut), some of this is not bad and the skeletal structure of what was shaping up to be a very good third LTE record can be heard, waiting to be set free and transformed into a real album. 'Hot Rod' has potential and some neat passages from Rudess' keys and guitar samples, and at six minutes could have been a promising track. 'Rpp' is cinematic and features a misplaced drum break from Mike Portnoy but 'Hawaiian Funk' is disjointed and 'Cappuccino' only teases with piano from Rudess and more aimless wandering, and 'Jazz Odyssey' is pretty much just that... though Spinal Tap's version was just as good and much funnier. 'Firedance' is another fractured shard of possibly good music and the record continues in this vein, with disconnected moments and floating free radicals causing much distress to fans of this once great project. And it's mostly downhill from there. 'Tony's Nightmare' is nothing more than a three-note cello phrase repeated for three minutes and the rest of this CD just drifts into what eventually becomes not much more than a sound check. Little interest to fans here, as most will expect some level of focus and display of musicianship. Maybe a third Liquid Tension Experiment record will come out someday... but this ain't it.