There are times that words fail me.<\/p>\n
How can I adequately describe
\nAttention Deficit<\/i>, the debut album from the band of the same
\nname? A band that features three of the better-known names in rock,
\nmetal and new age\/jazz? A band that, in all respects, should have
\nknown better than to put together such a hodge-podge of
\nnon-segueing songs?<\/p>\n
Alex Skolnick (formerly of the thrash outfit Testament) breaks
\nout of the limitations the metal genre might have put on his
\nplaying, and is able to create some serious free-form noise out of
\nhis guitars. Drummer Tim “Herb” Alexander (formerly of Primus,
\nanother band that escapes definition), much to my surprise, is more
\ncontrolled and less showy in his playing on this release; he
\ndemonstrates there was more to his playing in Primus than all those
\nfancy double-bass fills I came to know and love. And Michael
\nManring – well, he gets to keep doing what he’s been doing all
\nalong, which is making the bass guitar as rich a lead instrument as
\nany other axe in the band.<\/p>\n
Put these three together, and you’d expect a pretty solid
\noutcome, right? Wrong.<\/p>\n
\nAttention Deficit<\/i> lives up to its name by happily jumping
\naround the eighteen songs that make up this disc, not seeming to
\ncare whether they’ve finished a musical thought or not (how does a
\n10-second song allow me to really get into the gist of the track?),
\noften moving to the next song without the benefit of a segue. (At
\ntimes, it almost feels like the tracks were not only written to
\nflow into one another, but were recorded that way as well.)<\/p>\n
But by creating such a “go with the flow” piece of music, the
\nidentity of many of the tracks (some of which clock in at under one
\nminute) are lost in the cacophony. You literally have to be sitting
\nin front of the CD player with the jewel case in your hand and your
\neyes glued to the LCD display to keep score on this one. Tracks
\nlike “Snip,” “Khamsin” and “Wrong” are buried under what becomes a
\ntidal wave of music – too bad.<\/p>\n
The centerpiece of
\nAttention Deficit<\/i> is the nearly 12-minute “Fly Pelican,
\nFly,” a song that does allow the trio to explore the intricacies of
\ntheir music (as does the track “Scapula”). Manring’s bass work
\noften sounds like a solo I might have heard in Frank Zappa’s band,
\nwhile Alexander’s drum work is a different change of pace than what
\nhe was doing with Primus. Skolnick does seem to revel in the fact
\nhe can now sculpt his guitar lines into any shape he wants, but he
\ndoes still seem to use a touch of distortion (if not enough to
\npaint a house) in his effects to get the guitar sound he
\ncraves.<\/p>\n
And despite their best efforts,
\nAttention Deficit<\/i> seems to be missing something. I don’t
\nwant to go so far as to say that the album needs vocals (though
\nthey would have been welcomed at some points in the disc), but as
\nyou listen to the disc, you can almost hear a void that isn’t being
\nfilled by any of the three musicians.<\/p>\n
Maybe part of the problem was that
\nAttention Deficit<\/i> is ambitious – in retrospect, a little
\ntoo<\/i> ambitious. Any time you put three of the top names in
\ntheir instrumental fields in the same band together, the mixture is
\ndefinitely a volatile one. In this case, it almost is as if none of
\nthe instruments wants to come out to the forefront and lead the
\nparade (even though each member gets adequate opportunities). Cream
\nhad the same problems, only they had three virtuosos clamoring for
\nthe listener’s attention at the same time. Attention Deficit seems
\nto try to be fair to each member, but you know the old saying about
\ngood intentions.<\/p>\n
\nAttention Deficit<\/i> also tries a little too hard to be cute.
\nWhen I read song titles like “The Girl From Enchilada” and “Say
\nHello To My Little Friend,” I think I expect a little whimsicalness
\nto the music. Not in this case; the songs all have similar feelings
\nas the more casually-titled numbers. So, why should these stand out
\nfor the listener? I can’t think of any good reason.<\/p>\n
\nAttention Deficit<\/i> occasionally shows moments of brilliance,
\nbut these are few and far between. From a band consisting of three
\nwell-known musicians, we should expect better work from them – and
\nthis isn’t it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5967],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-35977","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-attention-deficit","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35977"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35977"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}