As the volume increases and the instruments become distinct, the music stops briefly only to be interrupted by the soft voice of lead singer Brendan Bayliss and a heavy synthesizer. This, my friends, is the beginning of the latest album by Chicago’s own jam/progressive rock band, Umphrey’s McGee. Death By Stereo is Umphrey’s McGee’s sixth studio album in their 14-year career.

Jamming is the art of improvisation for an extended period of time. Jamming normally occurs live when it comes to these types of bands, but occasionally you’ll hear it on records. I truly love jam bands and Umphrey’s McGee has always impressed me, so I was excited to hear what the new album would bring, jam-wise.

Umphrey’s McGee is a pioneer of Jam and has made its own genre of progressive jam using progressive rock. Progressive rock started in the mid to late ‘60s and was a British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels. Progressive rock contains more solos and improvisational elements.

“Miami Virtue,” the leading track off the album contains many new Umphrey’s sounds. With the heavy–synth coming later in the song, I began to believe that it would be totally different than their last album, Mantis. The album goes on to bring in new elements that are normally not heard on an Umphrey’s album. Unlike Mantis, in which the band only played one song before the album’s release, many of the tracks on Death By Stereo have been played on the road.

The album starts off with two of the three never-before-heard songs off the album. The second track, “Domino Theory,” sounded similar to a Black Keys song because of the very bluesy sound, which I was not against, and the bluesy song was new for Umphrey’s.

The Umphrey’s McGee I truly love appeared on the longest track on the album, which really showed their jam base material. “Search 4” contained heavy guitar towards the middle which led into a four-minute jam to end the song. This jam contains one of the only guitar solos in the album that later disappointed me because the solos by lead guitarist Jake Cinninger made Umphrey’s McGee who they are.

The very soulful song, “Booth Love,” contains soft guitar, simple drums and some of the many horns heard on the album. While listening to this song I feel like I’m sitting in some dimly lit bar listening to some smooth jazz. But I liked it. It was very soothing to hear after a long day at school.

The seventh song, “Dim Sun,” also brings something new to the Umphrey’s McGee table: a one minute fifty-two second song of straight-up acoustic guitar. It was something I have never quite heard by Umphrey’s. It took me by surprise and disappointed me because I expected a heavy Cinneger’s guitar to come in, as it does in the song “Uncommon” from their most popular album Anchor Drops from 2004.

Some of my favorite songs on the album were “Conduit” and “Hajimemashite.” “Conduit” I enjoyed because the guitar was a key contributor in the song, being loud in some places and soft in others. I also liked the reggae tease in the middle. “Hajimemashite” was one of the ballads of the album and you could hear Bayliss’ vocals that sound the same as they did 14 years ago.

Death By Stereo  is no Anchor Drops but it really made me like Umphrey’s McGee even more because they tried something new and added some new songs to their 1,500+ song library. Umphrey’s has always been one of those bands that I thought could play anything, and this album demonstrated just that.