It’s always great to see where Randy McStine is going next. From Lo-Fi Resistance to In Continuum, touring guitarist with Porcupine Tree during the Closure / Continuation tour, and his collaboration with Steven Wilson on his latest album, The Overview.
But there’s one key ingredient he hasn’t forgotten is his partner in crime drummer, Marco Minnemann (The Aristocrats, The Mute Gods, Eddie Jobson, Joe Satriani, and Dewa Budjana). The duo has released two studio albums during the pandemic five years ago. And now they’re back in full swing, taking nods to The Beatles 1965 classic Rubber Soul with III.
Listening to III, you feel the love, the vibrations, the chemistry, and the balance between finding yourself with hard-driven arrangements that is hitting you, like a speeding train coming at 500 miles per hour. The duo go way back during their In Continuum years back in 2018 when they did a pair of shows together and their own musical backgrounds when it comes to working as a team, bringing III to a standstill.
From the under watery opening introduction on ‘Over the Bay’ with its bubbly psychedelic textures of a superheroine whose back in the suit, but the struggle to be two people at the same time, can be difficult and hard with its uplifting melodies that the duo would create, knowing there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
Once the powder keg starts to explode on ‘Survive’, McStine brings out the heavy guns with its rising power to begin the spiritual journey and ascending rise to the top. Thanks to heavy riffs, organ driven roars, and Marco’s tidal-waving drum patterns. Not to mention the Gershwin-like flamenco guitar approach, then flying upwards with its pounding beats that they’ve created before the mellotron kicks the door open with a hardcore punch.
The electric sitar that is used on ‘Tigress’, echoes the golden-era of Yes with spiritual wonders with an alternative rock format, and unexpected time changes. How unexpected can you get? The answer is to find it with its tricky forms the duo unleashes to the public.
‘Your Own Decisions’ becomes this cat-and-mouse chase with its ominous surrounding. It opens up to its surreal guidance of the walls coming down on you, before entering the asylum filled with chaos, decay, nightmarish terrors, and suddenly breaking into out into this primal scream as Randy shouts “God, what have you done?!”
When he screams the line, you feel the tempers rising in his range, the post-punk attitude, the riff-like sounds of Crimson, and snarling attitude of the reflection revealing all the dark detail this person is going through. And it isn’t pretty from what we’re hearing.
Then, the wheels go into overdrive by ‘Crossing Wires’. Here, the music goes into this futuristic, fast-sped complex with electronic vibrations, layered guitar improvisations setting up this desert-like atmosphere with pounding drum work that Marco envisions McStine’s fretwork while bringing out more of the futuristic vibes to come into the void in the Zenyatta Mondatta vibes from the Police on ‘This Time’.
Listening to this track, it takes you back to Rush’s Moving Pictures-era as the duo had continued where ‘YYZ’ had left off, but added lyrics to the story with its Crimson motif in the middle of the story that speaks of the Discipline sessions with Belew’s lyrical structures.
But then, everything gets down to the Gentle Giant and Frank Zappa momentum with Herbie Hancock handling the production realms during the Headhunters period; unexpected time signatures, followed by stop-and-go momentum which is featured on the thrilling ‘Riding on Clouds.’ How prog can you get? Really prog to the core, but adding in those soulful textures and medieval sections in which Randy channels The Grand Wazoo’s arrangements.
Another welcoming return for the duo to come up with another follow-up five years after living in the pandemic lock down. But a great way for Randy and Marco to come out with a blaze of awesome power.
