June 15, 1999 - Liquid Tension Experiment 2

It's a double release day! On the same day as "An Orchestrated Rise To Fall" and a little over a year since their self-titled debut, Liquid Tension Experiment released their second album "Liquid Tension Experiment 2" on June 15, 1999. This album is more of the same instrumental progressive metal that was on their debut, and that is just fine with me as their first album was excellent. Let's dive into some more LTE!

The album kicks off with "Acid Rain" and Tony Levin kicks right into a nice fast-paced bass riff as John Petrucci joins in with some fast guitar and Mike Portnoy plays some pretty cool drums as well. Jordan Rudess adds some epic keyboards and he also plays some awesome fast piano when he takes the lead. Words don't do proper justice as everyone plays some pretty incredible stuff and it all goes together really well. There are moments where the guitar is mesmerizing, others where it's the keyboards and all the while with a pretty fantastic rhythm section. Rudess especially plays a ton of awesome stuff and this song is such a roller coaster ride! What a way to open the album! Up next is "Biaxident" and Rudess starts us off with some softer but epic piano and Portnoy and Levin nicely build the rhythm section around it. Petrucci comes in with a light guitar riff that is a little sappy sounding, but Levin's bass sounds good in the background and the piano continues to be pretty good. The guitar eventually changes to a cooler electric and Peteucci plays a solid little solo that really seta the stage for the keyboard solo. Rudess fucking kills it with some awesomely fast piano and after a lengthy and pretty wicked solo they return to the main riff. Rudess goes off once again with a different keyboard sound in a shorter but still pretty sweet solo and then Petrucci epicly plays things out until the end. A little lighter but still a good song for sure. Track 3 is "914" and Levin plays a nice groovy bass riff to keep the pace and Portnoy plays some nice drums as well. Rudess adds some light keyboards that leave the rhythm section in the forefront and I like the feel as Portnoy delivers lots of great fills. The keyboards pick up as the sing goes on and Rudess eventually plays a pretty awesome solo that sounds so crazy and cool! This was a pretty cool shorter song that didn't have much guitar, but everything else sounded awesome! The next track is "Another Dimension" and out of a slow and trippy opening Levin starts up a bass riff, Petrucci follows with a cool guitar riff, Portnoy adds some solid drums and Rudess continues to play the trippy keyboards in the background. Portnoy's nice drum fill sets up the next part where Rudess takes the lead with some pretty epic keyboards. Petrucci delivers a lengthy and pretty freaking sweet guitar solo and Rudess follows that up with a lengthy solo of his own that also sounds pretty good. Even all of the regular guitar and keyboard parts sound pretty cool and Portnoy plays some great drums in the middle of this long song as well. The mood shifts drastically as Rudess plays some very French, accordion-like keyboards and it actually sounds pretty cool! It's very out of place, but Jordan does a good job with it and Petrucci follows that with some light Spanish guitar that follows the same theme: very out of place, but very well done and it sounds pretty cool! They end things with a nice heavy new riff that closes out the final minute or two and this as quite the ten minute ride, with lots of fun ups and downs! Track 5 is "When The Water Breaks" and this seventeen minute song is named as such because Petrucci's wife called him to tell hil she was going into labour in the middle of recording it. The song also fittingly begins with a baby crying and Rudess plays some slow but epic piano to start us off, but the speed abruptly picks up and Rudess rips off a wicked little piano part before they move into the song's main riff which is led by some pretty wicked guitar by Petrucci. Words cannot do proper justice to how well these guys work together and all the seamless shifts from part to part show how progressively awesome LTE is. There's a lot of great guitar, piano and drums and saying there's some awesome stuff here and cool stuff there just isn't good enough. Like it's a lot of groovy and smooth guitar, some pretty amazing keyboards and Portnoy plays a ton of great drums throughout the whole song as well, including a really great part in the first half somewhere. When Rudess goes off on the piano it sounds so fucking good! And of course Petrucci's guitar is effortlessly flawless and jaw-dropping. When we hear the baby crying a second time it signals the exact moment they were at when the phone call came in. Everything after that is a wonderful mad dash to the finish and Rudess's closing part is a hilariously cool way to wrap up this pretty freaking sweet song! Up next is another pretty long track called "Chewbacca" and after a pretty trippy opening Portnoy starts up a nice drum beat and Petrucci takes over with a slow but pretty cool guitar riff. Pprtnoy continues to play lots of great drum fills throughout the song and Petrucci delivers a wicked early guitar solo with lots of great shredding. Things quiet down after a bit as we hear some quiet but cool bass from Levin while more trippy noises continue in the background. Things sound decent but very calm for LTE until Portnoy starts up a cool new drum beat that takes us in a new direction. Rudess continues to play some trippy background keyboards and Levin starts up a cool stop-and-start bass line that fits nicely with the drums. Petrucci eventually comes in with some epic lead guitar and it continues to get cooler and more epic the longer they jam this part out. After another pretty sweet guitar solo Portnoy nicely brings things back to the opening riff as they nicely go through this one last time before breaking down for a nice finish. Track 7 is " Liquid Dreams" and Rudess plays some backing synths as well as some nice piano overtop and things sound pretty light, but Rudess's lead piano is anything but as he plays some beautiful stuff that occasionally just speeds the hell up and sounds great. After a couple minutes Portnoy finally joins in as Rudess switches to a new cool piano riff and Levin and Petrucci quickly follow to complete this pretty cool riff that still has lots of great piano. Rudess is the featured member this whole song and he eventually plays a couple other kinds of keyboards and they all sound pretty cool in their own way. After some pretty cool stuff that words don't properly do justice for he retuns to play some more cool piano as the others continue to just lay the backdrop for Jordan to show off. The final song on the album is "Hourglass" and Peteucci plays a very light and sappy guitar riff and Rudess matches the mood with an equally light and sappy piano riff that I think sounds better than the guitar, but it's all pretty tame. It's an odd choice to close out the album for me and there's no bass or drums at all! Just sappy guitar and at least some solid piano the whole way through.

That is the end of "Liquid Tension Experiment 2" and I thought it was another pretty awesome album by the impressive prog metalhead foursome. "Acid Rain" and "When The Water Breaks" were both top notch for me and the other longer songs were all good as well. The shorter ones on this album were not quite as amazing but this is still a really great album. The fact that I think this is their second best album just goes to show how amazing their self-titled debut was last year. It might be a long while before we hear from LTE again, but their spirit will carry on!