Attention Deficit is an instrumental supergroup formed in the late 1990s, featuring guitarist Alex Skolnick (Testament), bassist Michael Manring, and drummer Tim Alexander (Primus). The project represents a significant intersection of the Bay Area's thrash metal, progressive rock, and avant-garde jazz scenes.
Their sound is characterized by a 'continuum' approach to album structure, where tracks often bleed into one another to simulate a long-form improvisational journey. Skolnick utilizes a wide array of effects to bridge the gap between Allan Holdsworth-style fusion and heavy metal crunch, while Manring's use of the Hyperbass allows for melodic and harmonic textures rarely heard in a power trio format. Alexander provides a rhythmic foundation that is both heavy and polyrhythmically complex. Critically, they are regarded as a 'musician's band,' prized for their technical proficiency and their ability to maintain a rock-oriented energy within a jazz-fusion framework. They occupy a similar cultural space to acts like Bozzio Levin Stevens or Liquid Tension Experiment, but with a leaner, more improvisational edge.
Shares jazz fusion, math rock, progressive rock, dynamic_range (signature)
Shares avant-garde jazz, math rock, jazz fusion, progressive rock (subgenre)
Shares jazz fusion, avant-garde jazz, progressive rock, dynamic_range (signature)
Shares jazz fusion, progressive rock, dynamic_range, art rock (signature)
Shares fretless bass harmonics, jazz fusion, restless, progressive rock (detail)
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