Liquid Tension Experiment

ragingflea002 · Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 6:45 pm Post subject: Liquid Tension Experiment

This is an instrumental side project by 3/5 of Dream Theater that hones in on skill. Mike Portnoy is on drums, Jordan Rudess is on keyboards, and John Petrucci is on guitar.
On bass is Tony Levin, whom I hadn't heard of until my guitarist introduced me to the band.
It's good heavy instrumental stuff, if you're into it. The skill demonstrated on each members part is extraordinary. Yes, it's 100% showing off, but it's something to respect, if you're an active rock musician with a desire to excel at your instrument.
As is evident in "Acid Rain", Petrucci is a master of his instrument. Heavy riffs introduce "Acid Rain", but then go into some of the fastest soloing I've heard. If you understand what "sweeping arpeggios" are, then he does them at an incredible speed.
Levin is exceptional, but I've heard better. In fact, should you ever get a hold of Scott Bannevich's work, outside of Edwin McCain, you'd be amazed. His son is an active musician on our local scene and he was kind enough to show us his father's work when he was almost asleep on his feet.
Better than the Buddha.
Portnoy uses insanely fast double-bass, as well as messes around with time signatures a bit. Awesome stuff for the aspiring drummer.
Rudess is basically Petrucci on a keyboard. The tone of the keyboard fits the entire song and doesn't stand out painfully. Just right.
You'd have to listen to them yourself to understand what it is. HOWEVER.
If you want sex, drugs, n' rock n' roll. This won't be your cup of tea. If you can get into the bass, guitars, and drums, you can probably headbang on a few parts, but other than that, it's instrumental work which is meant to display skill and to impress.
Of course, emotion has something to do with it too.
For those of you who are interested, here's their MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/liquidtensionexperiment

Enjoy.
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Ogrim_Doomhammer · Oldbie Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 2116

I had already made a thread about them, great stuff, if you like them you should check out:
http://www.myspace.com/infinitus
They have a similar style, a little bit softer but still heavy.....

I just can't understand how petrucci is so consistent, he might not be the fastest guy on a guitar but surely is a great composer and always keeps the same amount of clean notes, that is one of the things I like the most about his playing....
Tony Levin used to play for King Crimson, but I still like his work at LTE because of the heavy use of the chapman stick....
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ragingflea002 · Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:18 pm Post subject:

If you go to the Berklee College of Music, I guess you learn to be that precise. Petrucci just put it all to good use, as did Portnoy and Myung.
My rhythm guitarist is gonna try n' go there eventually.

Mikagami · Rookie Joined: 22 Jun 2005 Posts: 40

Love LTE and Dream Theater. Without a doubt my alltime fav bands. Can't say I'd ever heard of infinitus before but they sound really cool! What do you guys think of Pain of Salvation/Pink Floyd/Peter Gabriel?