Umphrey's McGee
Mantis

I admit it: two years after I bought it, I still can't decipher what's depicted on the cover. However, I feel it reflects the music well.

Missed headliners of the next, aborted, NEARFest, Umphrey's McGee have managed over the course of a little over a decade-long career to merge improvisation worthy of the best jam scene with the structures of a very personal progressive. As far as I'm concerned, they are the most fun thing I've listened to over these years. This Mantis (2009) is their most ambitious album, perhaps the most cohesive. Once compositions born from the fantastic jams on the road between one stop and another of endless tours are archived (UM are famous for testing and proposing songs live even years before recording them on an album), this time these are songs written and produced entirely in the studio. Bayliss, the guitarist-frontman, explained how each member of the sextet proposed their ideas (solos, refrains, riffs, etc.) and everything was assembled in the most harmonious and participatory way possible. The result is these eight songs (spread over ten tracks).

The epic that gives the album its title is the only song I had to listen to multiple times. It's a beautiful manifesto of the UM's technical and compositional abilities: multiform and monumental, at times it reminded me of some episode of Dream Theater, but here you have much more fun. Beautiful composition, however, I would have placed it better at the end.

The best track on the album is "Cemetery Walk," divided into two parts. It begins and you would say it's AOR, but then the vaguely Latin bridge flows into a solemn chorus totally contrary to the assertive tone of the song. The repetition of the chords in the final crescendo with a clear cut is a clear homage to the Beatles' "I Want You (She's so Heavy)." The second part of the track reprises the bridge with techno-dance beats (oh yes!), and it kicks off club experimentation. Putting yourself in the shoes of musicians who want to have fun on stage, you think indeed it has its reason: live it allows for amazing electronic jams.

"Spires" is the other standout track of the album: an exhilarating prog ride with its countertempos. The vocal harmonies at the end are this time an homage to the Beach Boys, and they catapult you back to the '60s by the ocean. The peculiarities of this band increase when a track like "Prophecy Now" comes out: a lullaby based on an unusual chord progression cradling an atmosphere that gradually becomes mystical.

The umpteenth homage of the album is found in "Red Tape," which in its initial bars closely resembles "River" by Gentle Giant.

For those who follow them, "Mantis" removes a bit of the jam from the general attitude of these live set musicians (amazing live), but it confirms the quality of the progressive ingredient that many times had given me the impression they knew how to master.