Published on Aug 17, 1998
There are times that words fail me.
How can I adequately describe
Attention Deficit, the debut album from the band of the same
name? A band that features three of the better-known names in rock,
metal and new age/jazz? A band that, in all respects, should have
known better than to put together such a hodge-podge of
non-segueing songs?
Alex Skolnick (formerly of the thrash outfit Testament) breaks
out of the limitations the metal genre might have put on his
playing, and is able to create some serious free-form noise out of
his guitars. Drummer Tim “Herb” Alexander (formerly of Primus,
another band that escapes definition), much to my surprise, is more
controlled and less showy in his playing on this release; he
demonstrates there was more to his playing in Primus than all those
fancy double-bass fills I came to know and love. And Michael
Manring – well, he gets to keep doing what he’s been doing all
along, which is making the bass guitar as rich a lead instrument as
any other axe in the band.
Put these three together, and you’d expect a pretty solid
outcome, right? Wrong.
Attention Deficit lives up to its name by happily jumping
around the eighteen songs that make up this disc, not seeming to
care whether they’ve finished a musical thought or not (how does a
10-second song allow me to really get into the gist of the track?),
often moving to the next song without the benefit of a segue. (At
times, it almost feels like the tracks were not only written to
flow into one another, but were recorded that way as well.)
But by creating such a “go with the flow” piece of music, the
identity of many of the tracks (some of which clock in at under one
minute) are lost in the cacophony. You literally have to be sitting
in front of the CD player with the jewel case in your hand and your
eyes glued to the LCD display to keep score on this one. Tracks
like “Snip,” “Khamsin” and “Wrong” are buried under what becomes a
tidal wave of music – too bad.
The centerpiece of
Attention Deficit is the nearly 12-minute “Fly Pelican,
Fly,” a song that does allow the trio to explore the intricacies of
their music (as does the track “Scapula”). Manring’s bass work
often sounds like a solo I might have heard in Frank Zappa’s band,
while Alexander’s drum work is a different change of pace than what
he was doing with Primus. Skolnick does seem to revel in the fact
he can now sculpt his guitar lines into any shape he wants, but he
does still seem to use a touch of distortion (if not enough to
paint a house) in his effects to get the guitar sound he
craves.
And despite their best efforts,
Attention Deficit seems to be missing something. I don’t
want to go so far as to say that the album needs vocals (though
they would have been welcomed at some points in the disc), but as
you listen to the disc, you can almost hear a void that isn’t being
filled by any of the three musicians.
Maybe part of the problem was that
Attention Deficit is ambitious – in retrospect, a little
too ambitious. Any time you put three of the top names in
their instrumental fields in the same band together, the mixture is
definitely a volatile one. In this case, it almost is as if none of
the instruments wants to come out to the forefront and lead the
parade (even though each member gets adequate opportunities). Cream
had the same problems, only they had three virtuosos clamoring for
the listener’s attention at the same time. Attention Deficit seems
to try to be fair to each member, but you know the old saying about
good intentions.
Attention Deficit also tries a little too hard to be cute.
When I read song titles like “The Girl From Enchilada” and “Say
Hello To My Little Friend,” I think I expect a little whimsicalness
to the music. Not in this case; the songs all have similar feelings
as the more casually-titled numbers. So, why should these stand out
for the listener? I can’t think of any good reason.
Attention Deficit occasionally shows moments of brilliance,
but these are few and far between. From a band consisting of three
well-known musicians, we should expect better work from them – and
this isn’t it.