It’s funny because it’s true – most supergroups with the members’ surnames above their door sound like they’ll also handle conveyancing or draw up your will for you. Full credit to these three virtuosos (an overused term, completely valid here) for skewering and owning that gag on their second album together. With King Crimson, Steven Wilson and Dream Theater all having been highly active of late, Tony, Marco and Jordan have been a bit busy. And yet little has changed since their 2013 debut, LMR – they still make instrumental prog of the first order. Playing insane chops is just another day at the office; compositions and humour can take precedence.
There’s some Zappa mischief to Back To The Machine (largely down to Rudess’ keyboard choices) and Moog-mungous What’s The Meaning. Riff Splat’s rock surge comes with some wonderfully warped classical piano passages, and Levin/Minnemann’s low-slung groove on Ready Set Sue is pretty irresistible. Marseille and Shiloh’s Cat lean towards more traditional fusion, while Witness could’ve come straight from multi-instrumentalist Minnemann’s quirky solo catalogue. The more subdued Balloon is incontrovertible evidence, M’lud, that they can do restrained. But then, of course they can.
