LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT 3

With the 2020 COVID lockdowns shutting down touring, many musicians were left at a loose end - and with their other projects on hold as a result, the members of Liquid Tension Experiment finally had a chance to make that third album at long last. Something of a thaw had come between Mike Portnoy and the Dream Theater camp after the initial shock of his departure from the band - he'd done drums on John Petrucci's solo album a little earlier - but even so, it was still something of a surprise to hear that the quartet were still interested in working together, having largely let the project lie fallow for decades.

The album finds them picking up where they left off, continuing to present more focused, composed songs (for those who must have improv, a bonus disc on some editions comes with an hour of jams), and with production values which really help tease out the nuances of the material. Sounding more like the bizarre offspring of prog metal and Mahavishnu Orchestra-style jazz fusion than ever, and with a little humour splashed here and there, this might in fact be their best album yet - with nothing to prove, they can just get out there and see where the music takes them.