by S. Victor Aaron
Hybrids are all the rage these days; you see Toyota Priuses and Honda Insights filling up our roadways as recent gas price hikes has engendered a greater focus on fuel efficiency. There’s was recently another cool new hybrid unveiled, but this isn’t a hybrid of gas and electric power. It’s a hybrid of two bands with heavy reputations for instrumental prowess: OHM and Umphrey’s McGee. It’s called—(drum roll)— OHMphrey.
We’ve done a fair amount of coverage on Umphrey’s McGee already and so there’s no need to retread ground on the Chicago-based jam band who is arguably the best of its kind these days. OHM, on the other hand, gets its first mention on this here site, so a little explanation is in order.
OHM is an L.A.-based metal fusion trio led by its virtuosic guitarist, Chris Poland. Poland made a name for himself as lead guitarist for premier metal band Megadeth for their formative first two releases in the mid-eighties, but Poland’s fusion roots go back farther than that. Joining Poland in OHM is his longtime compadre, fretless bassist Roberto “Pag” Pagliari, and Kofi Baker, son of Ginger, on drums.
Not long ago, members of both of these bands jammed together at some Chicago venues. The vibe felt so good, it was decided they would form this side project band, and to the delight for fans of both of their respective groups, record an album. The resulting self-titled disc went on sale earlier this week.
OHMphrey, the album, brings together Poland and Pagliari from OHM, with guitarist Jake Cinninger, keyboardist Joel Cummins and drummer Kris Meyers from Umphrey’s McGee. Recorded completely live in Poland’s own L.A. studio, the music is entirely devoid of frills and fussiness; it’s straight-ahead jazz-rock jamming. Given the taxing, careful construction of Umphrey McGee’s Mantis, which finally came out earlier this year, OHMphrey could be thought of as the anti-Mantis, and a liberating experience of sorts for OHMphrey’s UM members.
The strong personalities of each player comes through; these guys are veterans who have developed their own profiles over many years and in this free-wheeling setup they felt no need to suppress them. At the same time, there’s a strong sense of cooperation amongst them. Whenever a player is not taking a lead, they’re doing whatever they can to make the guy who is sound better. But the major plot in this band is the presence of two distinct personalities on guitar. Poland, as already noted, is something of a legend in thrash and progressive metal circles and is the owner of a highly distinctive style that is liquid, clean but powerful. His imprint sits somewhere between Allan Holdsworth and Joe Satriani, a mighty exalted place to be. Cinninger, who cites John McLaughlin and Al DiMeola as major influences, is no less distinguished. His manner is more prickly, angular and often unpredictable. A large part of UM’s singular sound is derived from Cinninger’s guitar. Furthermore, both of these dudes are scary fast when the need for speed arises.
Musically, this is much of the cross-breed between the two source bands as you might expect: a little of UM’s melodic and stylistically varied attack combined with OHM’s fluid balls-to-the-wall approach. Kind of like a Jimmy Stewart, actually. Since these songs are true jams, the songs are usually not as fully formed as what you’d hear from either group, but hey, that comes with territory. There’s no singing, either. Everyone just shuts up and plays. And with no edits, they played without a safety net and even through some rather challenging schemes that were cooked up, I couldn’t detect anyone falling off the high wire.
The opener “Someone Said You You Were Dead” is the most complete composition on the record, at least it sounds that way to my ears. With heavy guitars and a staccato, machine-gun beat, this veers close to thrash metal but ultimately, there’s a few too many complex changes and jazz chords to call it that. Cinninger and Poland work together especially well on this tune, exchanging roles almost telepathically and ripping off demonic solos that can only come from original talents, not hacks.
After the low-key “The Girl From Chi Town” (which, by the way, contains some really pretty fretless bass work by Pagliari), comes the thrasher “Denny’s By The Jail.” Come to think of it, this one is even heavier than the first song, and sounds like classic Jeff Beck at full throttle. “Ice Cream” starts with Myers’ slippery jazz beat and Pag’s bass walk and is built up with Poland’s thick chordal voicings, making it soncailly similar to Pat Travers’ “Crash And Burn.” It’s a shame it ends too quickly at less than three and a half minutes.
“Lake Shore Drive” begins with Cummins’ piano and proceeds into the sweetest-sounding melody of the album, sensitively played out by Poland’s pure tone and seconded with a more stinging one by Cinninger. “Not Afraid Of The Dark” is a tense shuffle with some slight dissonance. Poland and Cinninger again trade some torrid solos.
“Shrooms ‘N Cheese” is the epic jam of the bunch, running over fifteen minutes long. Built around Pagliari’s snaking bass line over an assortment of odd time signatures, the guitarists noodle endlessly over the ever-morphing groove. While you can find some interesting things going on in spots, the band seems to be searching for ideas at times.
However, the best song is saved for last; “What’s The Word Thunderbird” is a seventies-styled fusion-funk groove keyed by Poland’s rich chords as a rhythm guitarist, and Pagliari’s sure and steady bass. Poland steps out front temporarily to uncork a dominant solo, which inpsires Cinninger to follow with a more funk-oriented one. Cummins keeps the proceedings going at a high level with a righteous vintage synth solo, the likes I hadn’t heard in about thirty years, and Pagliari himself goes off while the rest of the band seems to egg him on.
OHMphrey is a dream-band come true for many jam band fans much as, say, Transatlantic was for neo-prog fans. It’s the kind of no-b.s., improvisational instrumental rock you can probably find in live venues all over the country but rarely done in the studio anymore. Cinninger summed it up this way: “There are zero overdubs on this record. It was as if we literally walked into Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey and laid down the sessions, as is.” OHMphrey managed to capture that live spirit, transported it to the studio and brought some pretty enormous chops into that room with them. When you’re in the mood for hard-rockin’ improv done by the masters and can’t get out to see it, this is the record to play.
Visit OHMphrey’s MySpace page here.
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We appear to be in sync with almost every track. I think we only differed on "LSD" (just noticed that abbreviation.) Great minds think alike.
I'm just glad you had it in your mind to tip me off about this supergroup. Thanks for the head up.