Led Bib — The People In Your Neighborhood
They don't quite find the energy of punk, in my opinion, and their 'rocking out' is a bit calculated and predictable, playing to established genre progressions and idioms. The unison heads tend to be pentatonic and not particularly melodic or memorable, as if the band just needed a riff to jam on, and picked one too hastily.
Jam they do, and solid, tasteful musicianship make this album a pleasant listen. The band sounds best when they've travelled farthest from their uninspired heads into psychedelic free rhythm territory, and begin all manner of noodly excursions. The well produced, warm instrument tones are nice on the ears, and it's easy to let this album play in the background. The frequent sax solos aren't charismatic or focused, exactly, though they blend well into a larger melodic tapestry.
At its weakest moments, it has a goofy "just rockin' out" vibe that reminds me of the obligatory choruses in 80's guitar god albums. I'm starting to wonder when people will behind the dated conception of 'instrumental music' that requires such power chord hooks. Opener "New Teles" is particularly guilty of this, and any of the 3+ times they play the head, I find myself waiting for it to be over.
The highlight of the album may actually be the bass player for me, who rides slightly ahead of the beat with anxious percussive abandon, the only convincingly 'rock' element of the band, in the end. His style of playing is a mixture of the solid regularity of post punk and the busy intensity of 70's prog like King Crimson.
In the end, though, there aren't many unique aspects or memorable moments that stick with you from this album, which seems much longer than it is, though nothing is offensive about it either. I would certainly enjoy seeing this band live, but it's somewhat exhausting listening to so many of their compositions in the order present on this recording, a feature I find common in many such albums. Artists in this genre tend to unceremoniously pack everything they've written lately onto a 72 minute disk, almost as if one is meant to pick and choose a particular piece to here at a given moment, rather than attempt the daunting task of digesting the whole. The music certainly blurs together after a short while for me, and I can't help but think the band might do better to focus on creating a smaller number of compositions with greater impact and distinguishing features to themselves. Jam music is all about momentum, and while the songs individually carry plenty of momentum, the album as a whole has none.
In conclusion, this is a good album of jazzy jam rock, which could be fantastic or thoroughly unremarkable, depending on who you are. If you play this sort of music yourself, I recommend you investigate, as there is plenty of good interplay, groove and exploratory improv on this album. The band's songwriting strikes my ears as a bit bland, but it's also a matter of attention span, as there is such a massive concentration of ideas on this 72 minute album that it's hard to say I've given due thought to them all. It's a well produced and performed recording, but I'm not exactly sure it coheres into something I really need, or haven't heard done before, and better.