Luke Jaeger is a one-man metal making machine; Sleep Terror is his solo project and musical outlet. Fifteen staggeringly technical tracks make up Probing Tranquility, but the album barely surpasses half an hour. I'm no metal aficionado, but I am an avid guitar player; however, it hardly takes a musician to sense the complexity of this release. Blast beats mesh with frenetic fretwork, and not one scream, yell, or growl can be heard throughout the album. It's almost refreshing to be able to concentrate on such talented music. The main problem with Probing Tranquility is its riff-overkill. Jaeger presents so many short passages that you can't help but start to become bored by the extreme technicality of it all after a few songs. To top it off, Jaeger seems to have had a bad case of The Voltas when naming his songs - The Mars Volta(s), that is. "Androgynous Charade"? "Hypnogogic Qualm"? "Dysrhythmic Vexation"? Please tell me, off the top of your head, what a "Diural Enuresis" is. C'mon, man, don't act so lofty.
