Sean Trane
Tibbetts is now with a full group, but his music has not really changed much since the earlier Northern Songs even if this album has some real improvement on the rather boring afore-mentioned album.
Apart from the opening Test where Tibbetts’ guitar is showing just how vigorous it can be (along with the rest of the musicians), and its follow-up, the steel drum and kalimba-led Climbing the album slows down to the same kind of calm climates Northern Song. Again the guitar rises from naught in the Vision track, and apart from the mission, the rest of the album never perks my mind. Boring? Not really, but pointless, surely.
Again an album in which subtleties and ambiances are the main features, but there are hundreds (thousands?) of such albums, and this hardly one of the best, but not exactly the worst either. And if it was not in the Top 40 of its genre or in the Bottom 20, then please tell me what the point is with this kind of album? I think you understand, now. I rest my case.