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1. "Hey, Where's MY Drink Package?" (7:01) A quirky fun song with astonishing musicianship that twists and turns as if the band members were racing through the streets of a Renaissance-designed city. A top three song. (14/15)

2. "Aristoclub" (4:48) (8.875/10) 3. "Sgt. Rockhopper" (5:51) (8.875/10)

4. "Sittin' with a Duck on a Bay" (7:21) an entertaining display of familiar riffs and phrases strung along with virtuosic ease and effortlessness. A couple of the passages are even kind of cool--something the likes of Randy Bachman and Jeff Beck would even envy. (13.375/15)

5. "Here Come the Builders" (6:16) more blues-rock-based music with an endless string of regurgitated riffs based on the memorable earworms from our musical heritage. I don't really like the song but I cannot deny the talents on display. Amazing. (9/10)

6. "Muddle Through" (7:01) could very well have been a song from Steve Vai's most recent album. A very good song with lots of space to allow the listener to appreciate the remarkable subtleties routinely employed by these virtuosi. (13.75/15)

7. "Slideshow" (7:15) opens sounding like something light and delightful from a MONOBODY album, Marco and Bryan turn it into something a little more rock/prog rockish. Te third motif in the third minute, then, is a little spotlight back to Robert Fripp and King Crimson: a melodic guitar line within a Belew-Fripp-Levin-like weave that Robert, I think, would kill to know he could create. Guthrie's guitar solo in the fifth minute is more rock standard, but then the band goes heavy power chord like Tears For Fears did on Sowing The Seeds. The finish finds the boys reverting to the MONOBODY-like Post Rock. Definitely a top three song for me. (14.25/15)

8. "And then there Were Just Us/Duck's End" (9:04) opening with a Southern guitar rock sound like The Outlaws or Jared Leach's GHOST MEDICINE, the band then turns down a mellower side road--kind of a CHRIS REA guitar-centric Smooth Jazz path. Then in the third minute Guthrie takes on a WES MONTGOMERY jazz guitar style before Bryan is allowed to express a little at the end of the minute. Then there is a crazy wah-wah-pedal solo that STEVE VAI could've/would've done before a bridge of chord repetitions and progressions holds space for Marco to show off a little. Back to the Chris Rea/Bruce Cockburn palette for the sixth and seventh minutes before a pause at 6:50 allows a reset into the opening Southern Rock world--with bassist Bryan Beller really knocking the sound out of the park here while Marco does what Marco does (impeccably). My other top three. (18.75/20)

9. "This is Not Scrotum" (5:06) a Spaghetti Western? No, it's a klezmer tune! A klezmer tune with amazing musicianship (ncluding the multiple violin play of guest Rusanda Panfili). Great fun! (9/10)

As accomplished as these musicians are--and as sophisticated these songs are--I'm not much of a fan of this kind of heavy blues-jazz-rock music, and yet I cannot deny the "Wow!" factor that these guys' performances evoke from me: all three of them; multiple times in each and every song! There is no better guitarist on the planet right now than Guthrie Govan, there is probably no better drummer on the planet right now than Marco Minneman, and this bass player really impresses. It's too bad that all of the music here seems to draw from already-familiar, previously rendered sounds, riffs, forms, and structures as it seems that the possibilities for the creation of new music with these guys is totally possible: they have the talent and skill and understanding to go "where no one has gone before." But, other than piecing together their own unique and unusual collages of song bits, they don't. At the same time the boys owe so much to the masters of the past--especially the likes of Jeff Beck, Tony Levin, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Vinnie Colaiuta.

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of stunning musicianship from three of the 21st Century's most virtuosic instrumentalists. Despite the fact that I don't always like the musical sounds, styles, or palettes presented here, I can only recommend this album very highly to any music lover.

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