FLOATING WORLD

This is an almost all instrumental Jade Warrior album, which is good news because usually the best cuts on their albums are the instrumental ones. This is almost a great album that could have been a lot better if Warrior had stayed with their more mellow instrumentals, instead of breaking up the flow with two loud outbursts.

The core of this album could be compared to a mix of Steve Hackett, 70s acid jazz, Phil Manzenera, classical music from different parts of Asia, jazzy movie sound tracks and Eno styled ambience. It is a nice mix and this album would be one of my favorites if they had not broken the mood with an overly loud heavy guitar riff on side one, and a rendition of the traditional Monkey Chant, complete with crazy guitar solos, on side two. The section on side one with the heavy guitar riff (it's hard to make out the seperate tracks on this record) is a little interesting because the riff is a dead ringer for one of those short 'nu- metal' style riffs that would become a lot more common more than twenty years later. Unfortunately this song doesn't go with the rest of the album, neither does the monkey chant which is too bad because usually monkeys are so cute and lovable.