The Collins/Wardingham Project - Interactive (2006)

Somehow this instrumental fusion/metal project found its way to my mp3 player. I'm not a big fan of jazz or fusion, but I've been acquainted with it ever since my guitar teacher in the late 80's introduced me to Gambale and Holdsworth. And this project reminds me of those two, plus some mid-90's MacAlpine. But aside from the inherent lack of direction in the songs, it's well played and produced and an enjoyable listen. They also deserve credit for making each song unique -- although most of the songs remind me of someone I've heard in the past, they don't seem to mix influences within songs. This strikes the right balance between having enough diversity that the songs don't all sound the same and having too much diversity so that the songs don't have any character of their own. If I have a complaint about this record, it's that there isn't really any bass. The focus is on the guitars and keys, and they take turns taking the spotlight, but there seems to be a notable absence of bass. The songs also seem a little long sometimes -- the average song is nearly six minutes long, but three of the nine are over nine minutes each.

Their MySpace page has a good variety of tracks from the album.