SUSPENDED ANIMATION

As so often is the case on this great site the overall average rating of an album is the correct one .... This is one of the most important conclusions I can make of Suspended Animation. And I really would have liked to say something completely different !

And how is this possible ? Is this a poor album ? Well, no, not really but somehow it falls short. And this is best explained by comparing this album with what Liquid Tension Experiment has done with their first two albums. Those two albums were spontaneously constructed, at least that was what it seemed. And John Petrucci must have thought: I can do this also with a solo release ! And the problem then is that the mentioned spontaneity is gone. Like other reviewers already mentioned this is just an expression of someone who can play the guitar very fast and in a very technical way. All praise for that but in a way it lacks the authenticity that LTE had.

That's in a nutshell what Suspended Animation is about. If you like just great technical guitar play this one is yours but if you want to feel the inspired stuff done like in the LTE-project then you will get disappointed with this output. But on the other hand it really goes too far for me to give the album two stars or even less because of just the feeling it expresses. The musicianship is simply too good and the compositions are well done. So I'm in doubt between three and four stars here but feel that three is the more adequate score for this (3,3).