THE INNER MOUNTING FLAME

John McLaughlin made a excellent album and it was created custom-made to blow the listener's mind. This is one of the most intense 40 minutes of music on record. "Meeting of the Spirits" and "The Dance of Maya" are particularly heavy, but even the quieter songs ("Dawn," "You Know You Know") have the same intensity.

Billy Cobham's drumming makes your jaw drop, it's so fluid, fast, and precise. A less experienced drummer would have made this music too heavy-handed, but Cobham sets up almost organic grooves for McLaughlin, Jan Hammer, and Jerry Goodman to emphasize the music way more.

The whole band moves with one purpose. I'm not sure they were all equally offering it up as a devotion to god (Mahavishnu John McLaughlin certainly was) as opposed to merely an extremely heavy album, but the music is amazingly focused and concentrated. You really can't enjoy this as background music -- if it isn't capturing your full attention, it'll likely just sound busy and loud. When you listen to it, though, there is something holy and sublime about it. The chords that open the record remind me of Gothic architecture, massive and towering, in the world but not of the world. And then a track like "A Lotus on Irish Streams" is just as focused but gentle, contemplative, and serene. Every track is like a meditation.

The flashiest part of this is "Meeting of The Spirits" but the apex of the album for me is the final section of "The Dance of Maya" where two musical lines -- one a raunchy blues, the other a hammering repeated motif -- come together -- totally different time signatures, totally different feels, but combining heavy energy and spirited musicianship

So intense, you definitely have to be in the mood for it, but if you are, this is one of the heaviest, most musically brilliant albums ever put together. Mahavishnu are some of the best to do it. 5.0

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