THE GHOSTS OF PRIPYAT

As guitarist and founder member of Marillion, Steve Rothery plays in a vocals-dominated band. This rare instrumental solo project is therefore a most welcome opportunity to appreciate his work undiluted. It has all the hallmarks of the Neo-Prog sub-genre Rothery helped to found: easy-listening but interesting, musically conservative but imaginative. Very lush and absorbing. As seen with Marillion's classic Brave album, or more recently IQ's creepy Road of Bones, Neo-Prog has the ability to make pleasant listening of the most sinister themes. So Pripyat, the abandoned and quarantined Ukrainian city for workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, does not really engender anything musical to make your flesh creep, and there is even something cool about the grim cover image.

Verdict: easily digestible for just about any rock fan.