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.