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JASON BLAKE “A Confusion Sequence”
JASON BLAKE “A Confusion Sequence”
By Dark Starr
Here is a truism for you: You just can’t go wrong with a JASON BLAKE album. This newest release is another example proving that rule. The music here is all strictly instrumental. It’s also performed by two people, Blake on Warr Guitar and Marco Minnemann on drums. The music has leanings toward things like KING CRIMSON and more. It’s dynamic and diverse. Yet it is also cohesive. I like everything here, but some tracks do stand taller than others.
“Awakening to Questions” starts ambient. It quickly turns heavier. It eventually works out to a cool groove with great driving percussion and some inspired musical concepts. This thing is just so strong. It takes us through a number of twists and turns along the road. Coming in edgy and harder rocking, “Memory Variations” has prominent percussion and killer Warr guitar work at play. In some ways it makes me think of what you might get if RUSH teamed up with 1990s KING CRIMSON. While this is definitely a strong track, it’s not quite at the level of the first one. That said, some of the harder rocking stuff later is very strong.
While not a big change, “Pretending to Breathe” really ups the ante somehow. It is quite involved and really gets into some driving territory. It’s a powerhouse that’s among the best things here. Driving, hard rocking and quite cool, I really dig “Dormant Visions” a lot. There is definitely a KING CRIMSON angle to it, but there are plenty of other things going on, too. I’d say that it is another standout on the disc, although in a lot of ways it’s not a big change from the rest.
The prog elements on “Lucent Eyes” are so strong. This makes me think of DREAM THEATER to a large degree. It comes in driving and hard edged, but further down the road it does drop back a bit. It is a screaming hot number that might be my favorite piece here. It just manages to work so well. It also stretches the concepts more than anything else here does.
“A Prophecy of Recollections” gets into more mainstream prog territory, too. At nearly ten-minutes long, it is the epic of the set, and that time gets good usage. The song is arguably the most dynamic thing here with a lot of changes and different sections. It reflects a lot of the leanings from elsewhere on the album, but it all gets rearranged in fresh ways. It is an intriguing number and a great choice for disc closer.
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