MIKE KENEALLY & BEER FOR DOLPHINS: SLUGGO !

Mike Keneally's third album is a step down from his first two albums. The music is still remarkable, and often reminiscent of the great Frank Zappa, but what is missing is that feeling of inspired insanity that permeated Hat and Boil That Dust Speck. That doesn't make it a bad album. It is still a Mike Keneally album, and therefore full of astounding music.

The first part of the album starts out schizophrenically, alternating between inventive guitar driven rock, Potato (a very funny song), Why Am I Your Guy? and Frozen Beef (Come With Me, and more off-the-wall Zappa-like songs, the great I, Drum Running, Am Clapboard Bound and Looking For Nina. The album then settles into a smoother set of songs, the quirky but fun Tranquillado, a strangely compelling Chatfield Manor (sort of giving directions to Keneally's friend's house, all the way to the best song on the album, the gloriously RIO Egg Zooming.

Strangely enough, the worst song on the album (but not really terrible, just out of place) is the final track, the title piece, Sluggo, a honky tonk piano solo. If you think ELP's honky tonk didn't fit their albums, you ain't heard nothin' yet.