Liquid Trio Experiment 2 - Universal Mind (When the Keyboard Breaks)

First off I need to make a clarification about the band.  When the album was released, it was released under the title of Liquid Trio Experiment 2.  But it is just Liquid Tension Experiment with the absence of Jordan Rudess.  His Roland keyboard decided to crap out in the beginning of the first song.  Every 4th key would play the note a half step higher.  This is clearly evident in the very first song within the first 5 seconds of hearing the track.  I can only imagine what the band's faces looked like onstage when they heard what they heard.  I know when I listened to it the first time, I wasn't really expecting it and I'm sure I had a "WTF am I hearing" kind of face.


The entire album is just one long jam session.  Which isn't really a bad thing.  These guys are a purely instrumental band, so it's not like they don't know how to jam, I quote from Portnoy, "this band is all about jamming, so you're gonna get your money's worth tonight".  The plan is that they will just jam until Jordan gets his keyboard fixed then they'll continue on with the show.

Well Jordan never gets his keyboard fixed.  On track 7 Jordan quits trying to fix his keyboard and plays guitar.  Petrucci switches to bass.  On track 8 guest drummer Charlie Benante plays drums and Portnoy plays bass.

Overall this is a decent album.  Although these guys are good at jamming, I can only listen to it for so long before it starts to all run together.  I rate this as a 7.7 of 10.

Track Listing
1. Universal Mind (When the Keyboard Broke)
2. The Chicago Blues & Noodle Factory
3. Fade Away or Keep Going?
4. The Haunted Keyboard
5. Close Encounters of the Liquid Kind
6. Ten Minute Warning
7. That 'Ol Broken Down Keyboard Blues
8. Liquid Anthrax
9. That's All Folks!