Liquid Tension Experiment

Liquid Tension Experiment (Magna Carta MAX-9023-2)

Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good

This instrumental side-project’s debut album boasts appearances from members of Dream Theater, The Dregs and King Crimson. It also states that closing jam ‘Three Minute Warning’ – which actually lasts for 28 minutes – is “not for critics of extreme self-indulgence”. Honourably professed, but the other eight tracks hardly use Ramones chord structures either.

Nevertheless, LTE is an exemplary acquisition for prog-heads. Sizeable chunks sound like Dream Theater minus that band’s concession to catchy verses and choruses. But other ingredients, like the pinch of scrambled, dissonant funk on ‘The Stretch’, quash any DT outtake conspiracy theories and render this an experimental pass with flying colours.

—Mark Greenway