Sean Trane
TT’s last album for over a decade, and often cited as their best, but I will not confirm this. The usual quartet is up to their old instrumental modern fusion tricks, and fails to renew them. Of course, you still have Henderson’s fiery guitar leading the debate, Kinsey’s relatively uninteresting synths along with his slightly more interesting electronic doodlings, Willis’ slick and round fretless bass, with Covington’s (slightly) improved drum sounds. To get an idea of how frighteningly anal (in the Freudian sense) the group can get, is to check out the individual instrument list for each member, where the only thing they fail to mention is the brand of their shoelaces.
Other than that, the music is still flawlessly played by the four undoubtly virtuosos, but again its main flaw would be its length, as you’re being bombarded for about one hour with the same kind of over-produced and too-slick instrumental modern rock-oriented jazz-fusion. Sorry, but I’m not masochistic enough to endure such a laborious trial. If RS generally regarded as their better effort around the millennium, it is only by a marginal difference, and the casual listener will have a hard time telling RS from their previous albums. Not that you’d really want to tell it apart either. But if you really find the need to have at least one TT album in their later discography, Rocket Science could eventually be a good candidate.