July/August 2002

Vital Information
Show 'Em Where You Live
Intuition Music

By Tony Green

Vital Information is guitar shredmeister Frank Gambale and drummer Steve Smith with bassist Baron Browne and keyboard monster Tom Coster. Gambale has a cleaner, more boppish tone with Vital Information than he does in some other more rock-oriented projects, and Coster adds textural diversity to Show 'Em Where You Live (Intuition). The quartet is anchored by Browne's low-end nastiness, allowing it to taste a wide range of musical flavors, from the J.B.'s spank of "Shagadelic Boogaloo" to the quirk-funk of "Soul Principle" to the Coltrane referencing "Mr T.C.," which is less a typical rock-fusion shootout and more postbop on meth. That's not to say that there isn't plenty of hard-core instrumental sandblasting: check tunes like "Cranial #4 Where We Live" and "Cranial #7 Brake Failure" for the grit.