Live at Local 506 [live]

These well-received veterans of Progscape, ProgDay, and Orion Studios offer a live slab of their best material in June 2000 at their performing peak, at Local 506 - a favorite ProgDay pre-show watering hole, near the completion of their first extended east coast tour, and just before the band called it a day. Well, the good news is that they have reformed in 2003 and are playing out again; this live release should more than hold the fans over until a new studio album can be completed. A short order of introduction for the uninitiated: Ozone Quartet plays an instrumental hybrid of heavy rock and fusion, with strong jazz and classical influences; the crack rhythm section of Wayne Leechford (stick) and Fran Dyer (drums) supports the front line of Hollis Brown (violin) and Jeremy Shaw (guitars), with a sound that seems equally influenced by David Cross era Crimson (and perhaps some Discipline era too…) and Mahavishnu Orchestra, as well as some chamber-based ideas, although those are not as evident in this live setting, where they pull out all the stops and rock hard. Folks familiar with the band’s previous two studio releases Fresh Blood and Nocturne will find many of those songs here, although ratcheted up energy-wise for the live performance; in fact this live set belies the somewhat more reserved nature of the band’s studio recordings, giving instead a cranked up high intensity vision of what those studio albums always hinted at. Am I clear? This is the one! — Expose.