LACK OF EDUCATION

Whoopgnash's Lack of Education, has that intensity and frantic, frenzied fusion rock in so many cuts that just making me listen has me breaking into sweat. But that's good ~ as the drive in Erickson's guitar work is brilliant versus brawn alone. Everyone in the group is killer tight and on the money top-shelf playing. A beautiful outro dedication to the late Shawn Lane closes this fine CD.

I notice too that this recording is mastered, mixed and produced excellently with fun channel pans and crystalline separation. This is a wide-open, headroom maxed CD. Signal to noise ratio is ~ 100 to 0 if ya know what I mean. Compositions & voicings are varied enough to easily avoid that typical fusion rock rut of every song being too narrow in the spectrum of sonicland.

For those needing places to anchor their heads as to what this Whoopgnash band is all about, try and figure this description out: Allan Holdsworth, in his I.O.U era was given a dose of Scott McGill's eclectic rock heaviness and kink ~ mixed in with a healthy swig of Ohm's Chris Poland ferocity and then the bpm is cranked way up. In a word, exhilarating!

Whoopgnash has really matured over their three-CD span of releases and this one shows them coming into their own trademark sound. I give this high-octane, fusion rock a solid 10 and highly recommend it for your collection. So buy it now! That's how fusion survives.