Tech Lead

It's been more than ten years since Tribal Tech's last release, and if this uncompromising fusion group was beginning to show signs of wear and tear by the time of Rocket Science (ESC, 2000), its return to recording proves that sometimes a hiatus can be a healthy thing. After working through a number of personnel shifts, guitarist Scott Henderson and bassist Gary Willis—who introduced the group with Spears (Passport, 1985), releasing eight more albums and one compilation between 1986 and 2000—finally found the perfect collaborators in keyboardist Scott Kinsey and drummer Kirk Covington by 1992's Illicit. It's this seminal incarnation that returns for X, and the result rivals TT's criminally out-of-print Tribal Tech (Relativity, 1991) as its finest hour.

By the time Illicit was released in 1992, Scott Henderson & Tribal Tech had been established as one of the premier, if not the premier, experimental fusion outfits on the globe. That's "fusion" as in the fusion of jazz and rock, not the vanilla instrumental musings of artists like Kenny G, which are occasionally mislabled as such. Henderson's dramatic and powerful soloing and his incredibly refined chord work were the greatest causes for the early attention the group received, and Illicit only furthered the guitarist's reputation with its fire and musical vigor.