Review: Levin Minnemann Rudess

Review: Levin Minnemann Rudess
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Lost in all of the hubbub of the excellent new Dream Theater album is the new LMR project, a fascinating pastiche of sounds and styles.

I received a media copy and have listened to it about ten times now. In a word, wow.

"Marcopolis" might seem more like straight-ahead rock, but songs like "Twitch" are much more experimental. "Frumious Banderfunk" seems like it could have been a metal song with slightly different treatment. The diversity continues with songs like "Dancing Feet." I can't begin to count the number of instruments used on this collection of interesting songs.

The comparisons to Liquid Tension Experiment are inevitable and not without merit. After all, Levin and Rudess are in both projects. If you like LTE, then you'll probably like LMR.

It's simply astonishing what these three musicians can do. And, because LMR is a three-piece band, there's much more space here for each guy to show his considerable musical chops. You just don't see too much music with keyboards and synths as the lead instrument these days. If you miss that, then you'll love that album.

By way of background, I know more about Tony Levin and Jordan Rudess than Marco Minneman, the new drummer for the über-talented Steven Wilson. Jordan told me that Minneman played guitar on LMR, and the guitar parts seem particularly inventive.

Overall, I really enjoyed the album and hope that LMR follows up its debut work--and soon.

Rating: 5/5.

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