HYDROPHONIA

Roine Stolt (like Neal Morse) seems to have this endless supply of music to share with the world. He actually dedicates this album to "Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Jon Anderson, Charles Mingus, George Gershwin, Allan Holdsworth and the artist formerly known as Prince." Roine is pretty much a one man band here except for help on sax from Ulf Wallander,and drums and percussion from Jaime Salazar. This is a good instrumental album, but in my opinion it's not nearly as good as his debut "The Flower King".

"Cosmic Lodge" is my favourite, probably because it is the closest he comes to sounding like THE FLOWER KINGS. A rather dramatic intro as the guitar soars. It turns jazzy 1 1/2 minutes in.The guitar is great, and I really like the mellotron that comes and goes. The bass is also prominant played by Roine. They get back to the original melody 6 minutes in as the guitar soars with lots of mellotron. Nice. "Shipbuilding" has a catchy, uptempo 2 minute intro. It then settles down but starts to build. Back to original melody 4 minutes in. "Little Cottage By The Sea" is a pastoral track with the sounds of birds, acoustic guitar, piano and sax.

"Wreck Of HMS Nemesis" opens on a bad note for me. Not a fan. It calms down before 2 minutes, sax follows. Kicks back in with more sax. I like the melody 6 minutes in of intricate guitar and drums. "Bizarre Seahorse Sex Attack" features what sounds like xylphone (percussion?).Guitar and drums end up leading the way. "Oceanna Baby Dolphin" has a country flavour to the intro. Not a fan of this one. "Nuclear Nemo" is one I like once it gets going. The bass and drums are great. Prominant sax 5 minutes in. "Hydrophonia" has some nice soaring guitar in it and mellotron as well. Sax ends it. "Lobsterland Groove" has a nice beat to it with sax. "Seafood Kitchen Thing" has a good uptempo beat as guitar plays tastefully over top.

A good album but I would take just about any FLOWER KINGS record over this one.