Trifecta – The New Normal (2024)
Artist: Trifecta
Album: The New Normal
Genre: Jazz Rock / Fusion
Label: Kscope
Year Of Release: 2024
Quality: FLAC (tracks)
Tracklist:
1. Beck and Call
2. Dot are you Wooing?
3. Stroboscopic Fennel
4. Just Feel it Karen
5. Sibling Rivalry
6. Ornamental Lettuce
7. Daddy Long Legs
8. What are you Doing?
9. Stupid Pop Song
10. Crime Spree
11. Bach Stabber
12. Kleptocrat
13. Once Around the Sun with You
14. Chinese Fire Drill
15. Ouch! My OCD
16. Wake Up Call
17. Wacky Tobaccy
18. Canary in a Five and Dime
19. On the Spectrum
Personnel:
– Nick Beggs / bass, Chapman stick
– Craig Blundell / drums
– Adam Holzman / keyboards
With:
– Alex Lifeson / guitar (13)
– Theo Travis / saxophone (7)
It’s been six years since I had the great pleasure of seeing Steven Wilson at the House of Blues in December of 2018 when he was promoting To The Bone. The rhythm section between Adam Holzman, Craig Blundell, Nick Beggs, and Alex Hutchings were a combination like no other. They also had amazing chemistry by giving Wilson that big giant boost during the show on a cold evening to 2018 a send-off.
Let’s not forget, Holzman, Beggs, and Blundell have a love of jazz inside their veins. That and Trifecta’s follow-up release to their 2021 debut Fragments entitled The New Normal is a mixture of fusion, progressive rock, surreal humour, and Wacky elements that add in those unexpected momentum that you’ve never heard before.
And to be allowed to have Alex Lifeson (Rush, Envy of None) and saxophonist Theo Travis, not just as guests, but to be a part of Trifecta’s journey into The New Normal.
The great thing also is that John Paul Jones’ chapman stick from ’79 was sent to Beggs to bring the album to life. Recorded in the Bermuda Triangle of normality that is Leighton Buzzard, Bedford, and New York between 2019 and 2023, The New Normal becomes a sonic twist of machinery with a big bite of the Big Apple’s sound of jazz that hits home.
Nick Beggs’ dadaism humour which is shown between ‘What Are You Doing’ and ‘Sibling Rivalry’ becomes a confrontation between two brothers on how to play the didgeridoo before it takes us straight into the Australian wilderness with a hot, bewildered heat coming across the blazing sun which makes you sweat buckets like crazy.
‘Daddy Long Legs’ lays down some brutal heavy funk with some brutal heavy wah-wah pedals Holzman does on his keyboards, Beggs channeling the textures between Stanley Clarke, Jaco, Levin, Bootsy Collins and a small touch of ELP’s music for a brief moment. Trifecta takes us into the Bossa-Nova room with a spoof of the ‘80s on another ‘Stupid Pop Song’ in its snapping-fingers, neo-lounge, and dare I say, Combustible Edison’s score to Four Rooms ring a bell to anyone?
Everything changes where they walk into Jan Hammer’s territory as Holzman puts on his sunglasses as he imagines himself writing the score to an episode of Miami Vice with the ‘Crime Spree’ that’s in hand. Adam visions himself as Don Johnson, playing those suspenseful arrangements, fanfare organs, and concerto approaches that make it worth the take.
Lifeson’s acoustic guitar textures brings a sense of closure on ‘Once Around The Sun With You’ pays tribute to Rush’s Test For Echo-era with its Vince Guaraldi approach that speaks of a continuation where ‘Driven’ had left off. With incredible twists and turns, The New Normal isn’t your daddy’s fusion album, this is where all of the ingredients are mixed in into some hot and spicy stew, blended in with a massive amount of wasabi sauce that is a dish served well.
by Zachary Nathanson, echoesanddust
