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Customer Reviews of Thick

Off-The-Cuff Tribal Tech
The term "fusion" is too confining a term for the artistry of Tribal Tech. For over a decade, they have made consistently excellent and state-of-the-art instrumental music. Their artistry has gone unappreciated because they occupy an instrumental no-mans land. Guitarist Scott Henderson's style is too hard core and aggressive for the Jazz crowd, yet too harmonically sophisticated for the metal and hard rock crowd. The rhythm section of innovative bassist Gary Willis and precise-yet powerful drummer Kirk Covington is too slamming for Jazz, but too rhythmically sophisticated and swinging for the progressive rock & metal crowds. Keyboardist Scott Kinsey is a musical mad scientist that defies musical description. This leaves Tribal Tech in their own musical netherworld, which they have dominated by producing one stellar release after another. On Thick, Tribal Tech alters their approach, producing an improvised and raw release that is less polished than their earlier work. For the most part, it works. Henderson's muscular Jazz-Metal approach dominates tracks such as "Sheik Of Encino", "Thick", "Jalapeno", "You May Remember Me", and "Slick." The low point of the CD is "Clinic Troll", which seems less like a song than an excercise in silly noises. The interplay of the band is stellar, and while Thick may lack the compositional color of stellar Tribal Tech releases such as Illicit or Reality Check, its visceral punch more than makes up for the relative lack of compositional sophistication.

Fusion meltdown
When Tribal Tech, probably the greatest fusion band of all time, decided to record a disc of in-studio improvisations, it set the industry--not to mention their fan base--on their collective backsides.

Many have still not recovered (see the clueless negative reviews).

Their loss.

Anyone, it seems to me, with ears even slightly open, should rejoice, exult, turn back flips in the presence of this altogether astounding music.

For one thing, this is the obvious forerunner of John Scofield's brilliant fusion discs. For another, it proves that Scott Kinsey (keys) is a player of huge consequence. Gary Willis does nothing but solidify his standing as among the absolute greatest e-bassists of all time. And Kirk Covington grounds the proceedings in rock-solid and brilliantly imaginative percussive moves.

Of Scott Henderson, little need be said, except that here, stripped down from some of the guitar gimmickry and wizardry that characterized Illicit and Reality Check, he perhaps casts an even longer shadow both in terms of his monster chops and his wacky tonal sensibility, fully on display, e.g., on the title cut.

Maybe it's just perversity on my part, by I'm entirely taken by the bizarro vibe of "Clinic Troll." Maybe I've spent too much time in SoCal; maybe I'm just terminally weird--I don't know. But I'm totally down with what's happening on this number. If fact, I'm pretty much just blown away by the easy, laconic, off-the-cuff supercharged vibe happening here.

Spooky, noir, scarily dazzling, this is among the finest discs I own.