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Rating: Monotonous. The album succeeding "Secret Story," "We Live Here" is a true disappointment. No new sound, no musical exploration, no enlightening melody.
It's 1995 and Pat is coming off a series of "hallucinatory" experiences such as the "The Road to You" tour, where the jazz-fusion of previous records had enchanted audiences worldwide, producing "I Can See Your House From Here" with John Scofield, not to mention the eccentric "Zero Tolerance For Silence." Written for 8/9 with his partner in crime Lyle Mays, it is an album overwhelmed by the quantity of drum loop samples rather than its content, and the duo enjoys experimenting with electronic visions, effectively neglecting substance and exploration. The starting point is "noise" upon which something is built.
Not that "Here To Stay," the opening track, is unpleasant: it lacks freshness. "And Then I Knew" is complex, but again it feels more like work done for its own sake. The blues "The Girl Of Next Door" is an evident sign of fatigue. There are hints of garage jazz songs in "The End Of The World" although "The End Of The Fusion" would have been more appropriate.
Among folk parentheses and tired tones is the pleasant "Episode D'Azur" with a Maysian imprint. Pat and Mays' music aims to be evocative, descriptive, and personal. The titles themselves must evoke journeys and landscapes, movement, spiritual wandering, embodying the perpetual wandering of the musician on the road, inspired by his memories and the shifting backdrops of tours. The game is faltering. After twenty years of the Pat Metheny group, something has gone wrong. Be it mental fatigue or creative strain. The fact remains that we are faced with one of the least successful episodes ever. Essential arrangements and in every piece there are melodic and ambient references already heard in previous works. See "Red Sky" and "We Live Here".
The constant percussion play leaves less room for creativity and seems to serve as filler. Predictable pianism, remnants of jazz-rock riffs, and little spontaneity.
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