j o n b

After not being all that impressed with the original Liquid Tension Experiment, I wasn't really planning on picking up this album. But, as I browsed through the local Camelot in the mall I found it, somewhat dumbfounded that Magna Carta had managed to penetrate the Beckley area. So, I picked it up. While I can't say honestly that I wish I hadn't, I probably could have put my $15 to better use elsewhere. The sound and ethic behind the original LTE release is present here, as well. This is heavy, chops driven prog metal. Composed over a brief period of time (though twice as long as the original album), there's a lot of material that was improvised during various jam sessions. The result, as you might expect, is a flurry of furious playing on the part of all involved. Notes fly around like tax cut proposals at a Republican presidential debate: fast, dense, and almost incomprehensible. Sometimes the group does slow things down a little bit, like the beginning of "Biaxident", but such moments are so few and in between that just gets to be too much for my ears. A nice little groove also pops up here and there, as in "914" (a reference to the car, I wonder?) And while things do seem a bit more structured overall than the original disc, and there are no half hour jam sessions, things still feel a little too loose for my tastes. I guess the bottom line is that what's going on on this disc just really isn't my cup of tea. All the players involved are immensely talented and I enjoy their other work (except for Jordan Rudess, who I haven't really heard that much of), so I really ought to dig this. I just don't, and maybe that's my loss. review by Jon Byrne — undated —

b o b

On first listen, I found this disc to be somewhat disappointing, considering how much I liked the first LTE disc. Maybe my expectations were too high though, because with repeated play the first half of LTE 2 has grown on me. The second half still doesn't do much for me, but that may be because after 40 minutes or so of this kind of music, I get a little burnt out. With the first album, the change at the half way point from composed music to the half-hour jam session helped keep the whole thing fresh. On LTE 2 it's just one high-speed progmetal piece after another for close to 74 minutes, which is more than I can take. Don't get me wrong, there's certainly some good stuff on this album, and if you liked the first LTE disc then odds are you'll also like the second. Still, LTE 2 lacks a lot of the spontenaity, enthusiasm and interest I found in the first disc. review by Bob Eichler — undated —

b r a n d o n

This one's a little more controlled than the debut, with less of the balls-out ultra-speed-riffing found on certain tracks of said release. There is, however, no lacking of speed-riffing here; it's just that the music has more of a composed feel, which I think (in this case, anyway) is a good thing. I like this better than the first disc, though mostly by merit of the first five tracks. The last three go straight through me without leaving any impression at all, which is not a good thing; the final track, an instrumental ballad of sorts, doesn't hold a candle to the "State of Grace" that LTE fans know so well. On the other hand, the 17-minute epic here is great, with plenty of catchy and hard-hitting moments (though it suffers from an unfortunate occurrence of the dreaded silly-circus-music syndrome at the end), and the track "Biaxident" is probably the best thing these four guys have done together - a real nice, melodic piece with a fantastic, somewhat jazzy-sounding guitar part in the middle section. As in the first disc, Tony Levin's bass playing is a highlight almost throughout the album, providing a solid foundation but also occasionally breaking out into some wicked grooves. So, despite the amount of filler present, I'd recommend this disc before the first one; though I have a feeling that people that disliked the debut won't like this one either. As for me, well - not bad at all. review by Brandon Wu — undated —