RITES OF PASSAGE

His forth solo album from 2006 named Rites of passage is a heavy prog album with jazz elements added, makes from this release a worthy one, while again something is missing in overall compositions to be labeled as excellent. The atmosphere as some of the pieces indicates like Bagdad Boogie has an eastern influence, very well melted in this context with the heavy jazz parts, well played. The main problem to my ears is that is to many times has same arrangements and maybe some pieces are to long.Coste Apetrea offers some great guitar lines, from mellow parts to more heavy, he is a renowed guitarist who handles very well the instrument, showing some great solo parts. Some keyboards and violin sporadicaly interlude in the mix to give a more eclectic feel to the heavy prog offered here, the result is pleasent but as I said something is missing, there are no highlights here, no bursting moments to say, well this is it. Never the less a good album, 3 stars.