Review: Capillary Action “Fragments” CD

Here we have nearly 45 minutes of varied instrumental material born at the hands of Jonathan Pfeffer, with a few contributions from outside musicians on drums and additional instrumentation such as piano and the like, while Pfeffer himself usually handles basically everything. The record offers a rather diverse collection of songs, drawing on influences from math metal and progressive rock, smatterings of jazz and emo/indie styles, or even Latin music and country/blues. Just check out the transition from the practically thrashy metallic tinged riffing at the tail end of "Ticking Ghosts, Pt. 2" to the spacey synths and dry clean guitars opening "Constant Steady Collapse"!? "Driving Through Twilight" then follows with some laidback acoustic guitars and lush keys that create a sort of alternative country sort of vibe or something. Very odd. And, of course, some of it's not my thing at all, but... none of it's all that bad either. Sure, I prefer the more involved and metallic playing, as well as some of the jazzier moments, though the fluid basslines and snazzy percussion in the eight-minute "Scattered Remnants" are quite cool - despite the song's somewhat meandering and improvisational structure around a repetitive core (Some of which tones down to the level of damn near lounge music!?). It becomes apparent rather quickly that no two songs on this disc are alike, and by the time you reach the fingerpicked acoustics and almost samba sounding "A Hundred Pages of Cannot Be Named" there's no doubt that an insane amount of styles are offered here. The electronic hipster rock junk that comes forth in "Mid-Coital Seizure" is the only thing on the entire disc that I can't handle, but thankfully "Architecture Would Fail" brings back some of the heavier material towards the end of the disc, complete with some Maiden-esque dual guitar harmonies and everything (though at seven minutes it drags a bit and gets too randomly chaotic at times - thankfully not enough to kill its overall impact). Recording-wise everything sounds very good for what is largely a one-man show. Yeah, it gets a little dry at times, and perhaps a couple of the tones are a little plain, but the mix is nice and warm, with a good level of depth and clarity, so I'm not irritated by anything when it comes to the sound quality. And aside from one really bland and awkward photo of Pfeffer playing guitar, the layout looks very nice and makes use of some great photos of dingy cityscapes that I highly enjoy. Were it not for that one rather awful photograph the presentation would be basically flawless, but at least the cover (i.e. the most important element) looks incredibly attractive. All in all this is a decent CD, though in the end the inconsistency does do some damage. Pfeffer is clearly incredibly talented as both a songwriter and a musician, but I can't help but imagine even stronger offerings based on the better moments herein. Hell, the dude could really start a couple of separate bands to focus on individual groups of influences and do just fine! "Pillars Disintegrate" with its use of samples and cohesive clean chords is definitely the most effective of the calmer side of things, while "Ticking Ghosts, Pt. 2" takes the metal angle to its plateau, but despite some killer passages throughout the remainder, it kind of falls short. This guy's got something happenin', though. He should definitely keep at it.