OCEANA

Do you like Jeff Beck's fusion albums like "Blow By Blow" and "Wired"? How about Jan Hammer, particularly The Jan Hammer Group's album "Oh Yeah?". Well, you're going to love this. This album has ex-Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian channeling the feel and style of those albums, with a little added heaviness in the guitars, and a few other keyboard sounds not heard from those great 70s albums.

Derek's style has always been a little jazzy, and on previous solo albums, and the albums by his main band Planet X, are a nice mix of jazz, jazz-fusion, and progressive metal. At times he'll even let loose and go completely post-bop amidst the prog-metal. On "Oceana", the jazz and fusion style is pushed to the foreground, leaving only traces of his famous brand of prog-metal. Lots of funky bass, excellent fusion drumming, and with guitarists Tony MacAlpine and Steve Lukather, you know you're going to get some real jazz-fusion guitar ala Scott Henderson; mixed with some heavy riffs here and there.

Seriously, if you are familiar with Planet X or Derek's solo stuff, but wished he'd do a real jazz-fusion album, this is it. Every track here is high quality modern fusion, with great soulful guitar, nice keyboard sounds and solos, but also fast technical stuff that occasionally reminds me of fusion bands like Tribal Tech, Jan Hammer Group, or Return To Forever. Add a little heaviness from the guitars (and keys), and you have a modern fusion classic.