The Spastic Ink Ink Complete (Color) vinyl brings Ron Jarzombek’s instrumental showcase to a limited color pressing of 300 copies, containing some of the most technically demanding and inventive guitar-driven music that came out of the progressive metal underground and holds up as a genuine statement of what the format can do.
Ron Jarzombek and the Spastic Ink Project: Spastic Ink Ink Complete (Color) Vinyl
Ron Jarzombek built his reputation through Watchtower, the late 1980s progressive metal band that pushed technical playing into territory most bands at the time weren’t attempting. Spastic Ink started as a solo project and expanded into something more ambitious: a record that uses instrumental music to make arguments about what guitar composition can accomplish when it isn’t supporting a vocal melody. Ink Complete runs across eleven tracks, ranging from the relentlessly pulsating “The Mad Data Race” to the soothing melodies of “Eights Is Enough” to the quirky narrative of “A Morning With Squeakie,” ending on the eight-minute-plus “Mosquito Brain Surgery.” The tracklist makes clear that this is not a showcase reel. It’s a composed record with actual architecture, where each piece serves the larger shape of what Jarzombek is building across the runtime. The “Work Tapes” included at the end give an additional window into how the material was constructed, which is appropriate for a record this interested in process. Alone Records described the music plainly: some of the most breathtaking instrumental music to come down the pike in quite some time, a trio that demonstrates musical maturity rarely encountered, leaving no stone unturned in their quest to stir the listener’s imagination. The assessment holds up.
The Color Pressing
Alone Records limited the color vinyl pressing to 300 copies, with a separate black vinyl run of 200 copies. The color pressing is the collector’s version. Ink Complete exists at the intersection of technical guitar music and genuine compositional thinking, and it rewards the focused listening that vinyl invites. If you collect progressive metal, instrumental guitar records, or the specific corner of the underground where technical playing serves actual songwriting rather than replacing it, this is the pressing to own. Jarzombek’s vision doesn’t simplify with repeated listening. It opens up.
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