Brennan’s resourceful technique – with an agreeably dry tone even when stretched to its highest and fastest runs – is front and center. He can play. His writing is rather abundant, not difficult to follow.
Javier Antonio Quiñones Ortiz
All About Jazz New York, April 2005
He aims a swipe at the “SO-SOs, or Same-Old-Same-Olds” of free improvisational arbitrariness with four “metagroove oriented compositions” which brennan refers to as a synthesis woven from grooves that move in opposite directions.
Bad Alchemy #44
Brennan’s talents are certainly worthy of the double-shot afforded them here—hopefully there’s a sizeable audience out there listening and more record dates lie waiting in the wings.
Derek Taylor
One Final Note, September 10, 2004
“Originally, I thought the way to go was to play free, but I wasn’t getting the sound I was intuiting that way.” he comments. “So I wrote more, pointing the textures and the improvisational possibilities somewhere else.”
Andy Hamilton
The Wire, October, 2004
The bite in brennan’s playing makes these improvisations compelling….The same fiery spirit animates “which way what” and makes this trio session among the freshest I have heard in some time.
David Lewis
Cadence, February 2005
Using similar compositions from two different performances gives a glimpse of Sonic Openings Under Pressure’s unique approach to guided improvisation.
Both sets have a tightly wound quality that is, frankly, a lot less appealing than the best of his previous records, and there are interesting developments of the material. There’s something airless and a bit forced about these performances.
Richard Cook & Brian Morton
The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD