I think the new material is mostly pretty damn good, but I don't like how the improvs were just shoved on to the bonus disc. Part of the magic of the first two records was the bounce back between jams and written material, as it gave the albums a really cool flow. I do think their cover of Rhapsody in Blue is outstanding, but with it being a cover, it feels like it would have made more sense to put that on the bonus disc and put more original material on the proper album. Ultimately we get it all, so it's hard to quibble too much, I guess.
Well, to be fair, there are still two improvised jams on the main album, albeit one is a duet with Chris & Kevin, but to me, they flow fairly well in the overall scheme of things. If you look at the first album, not counting "Three Minute Warning" at the end, there are only three improvs as well, totaling 7:47 long (including the Chris & Kevin track), which is still shorter than the 8:26 of improv music we get on LTE3. I think we got spoiled for improv material on LTE3, between tracks like "Chewbacca" and "Liquid Dreams" taking up over 24 minutes of the album.
They could have easily put 18 minutes of an improv jam on the main album (and given us an album as long as the first two) and never released the rest of the jams, so I am happy we got what we did. If it makes a difference, just put all the music into a single playlist or album on your digital players, or even find a way to segue them into the main album! Some of the jams have their own segue on the bonus disc though, so you might have to fade them to make your own segues.
-Marc.
Topic: New LTE - LTE 3 2021!! (Read 57719 times)
