PAKT: No Steps Left To Trace

When four highly regarded musicians like Percy Jones, Alex Skolnick, Kenny Grohowski and Tim Motzer join forces, expectations run high for an album like No Steps Left to Trace—and it delivers, effortlessly blending daring and organic soundscapes. PAKT's 2024 release defies easy classification, weaving progressive rock, jazz fusion and avant-garde experimentation into a tapestry of sound as unpredictable as it is mesmerizing.

The first CD features studio recordings, while a second captures live performances in Buffalo, New York City and Philadelphia, where it culminates with the final track, "Solar Myth."

The album opens with the 21-minute "No Steps to Trace, Part 1," an evolving musical conversation between the quartet. Skolnick's guitar lines shift from jagged, distorted riffs to delicate, meditative passages, while Motzer's electronic textures create a vast sonic canvas—like watching clouds form, drift and dissolve. Jones' fretless bass slithers through it all, providing a pulse that is both fluid and unshakable. Meanwhile, Grohowski's drumming somehow manages to keep everything together, expanding in all directions with backbeats, jazzy grooves and polyrhythmic outbursts.

From the outset, it is clear that these sessions are living, breathing organisms. PAKT thrives on spontaneity—this is no over-rehearsed, prepackaged jam.

"NYC V" begins with the guitarists' extraterrestrial parts and Jones' quivering notes, followed by the drummer's slick off-beats and funk rhythms, supporting Skolnick's groove-based single-note line of attack. The band paves the way for Motzer's crunch chords and EFX as they crank up the volume and up the ante, zooming into a cosmic abyss.

Each track feels like a conversation in real-time, and nowhere is this more evident than on "The Ghost Mills." Beginning with a disembodied voiceover, the band shifts from quiet, atmospheric moments to thunderous crescendos with nary a misstep. It is like watching a high-wire act where no one knows the next move, yet each player's instinct is spot on, driven by Jones' unmistakable bass and abetted by the band's feverish improvisation.

For all its moments of chaotic frenzy, the album also offers passages of unexpected beauty, where Skolnick's guitar takes on a lyrical, cinematic quality, threading through Motzer's atmospheric layers with an emotional depth that feels both expansive and intimate—beneath all the frenetic energy and virtuosic playing, there is a sense of searching, of reaching for something elusive and profound.

This is music without a map, untethered from convention or expectation. Yet for all its unpredictability, the album never feels aimless. Each track has its arc and its own internal logic, even if that logic only becomes apparent after a few sharp left turns. This is not simply a group of virtuosos flexing their chops—it is a collective, its members deeply attuned to one another, creating music that is alive and electric in the moment. The album is an invitation to throw out the rulebook and embrace the unknown, with PAKT as a fearless guide. In a world of predictability, No Steps Left to Trace is a refreshing reminder of what happens when musicians abandon the script and simply play. It is challenging, adventurous and thrillingly free. In addition, this is a production that affords the listener more discoveries on subsequent listens.