Warts & All, Vol. 6

Album Review

The Warts and All series is for serious moe. fans only, and this sixth installment (taken from a performance in Lawrence, KS, and featuring cover art that looks appropriately similar to The Best of Kansas) offers up the usual mix of improvisation, rhythmic riffs, and energetic guitar noodling. It's nothing that the band's audience hasn't heard before, but the three-disc bootleg still features plenty of inspired moments, all of them captured in clear soundboard-quality sound. From the spacey textures that dot "Head" to the 45 straight minutes of interconnected music comprising disc two, moe. makes a sizable amount of noise for a five-person band, and Warts and All, Vol. 6 stands as a testament to the group's continued importance in the jam band genre. Those looking for focused, vocally inclined tunes won't find much beyond the first disc, where tracks like "Captain America" and "It" meld the band's jamming tendencies with the concise, commercial savvy of the Dave Matthews Band. But most returning fans will want to sink their teeth into the 14-minute tunes that dominate the rest of the set list — and given the album's limited-edition release, moe.rons should eat this up while it's still on the menu.