"Rites Of Passage" is one of those virtuosic, guitar-hero solo albums that are so hard to differentiate. Surely, Coste Apetrea is one hell of an axeman, but before even popping this in I knew exactly what to expect: insanely complex noodling, razor-sharp riffage and a lot of guitar-based atmospherics. That's not to say that this isn't good, since it obviously displays immense amounts of proficiency and thoughtfulness in the compositions. In fact, "Rites Of Passage" is quite good as background music. But what I'm going to go ahead and say is that this just isn't very interesting and I doubt that it's something that's going to make your jaw drop out of anything other than reverence of this man's inhumanely gifted fingers.

Surely, there's a lot more to "Rites Of Passage" than just the guitar. There is heavy use of pianos, synths and strings, as well as a few minor inclusions of wind instruments. Typically, these instruments augment the guitar arrangements, but every now and then they come to the forefront and provide a nice change from the otherwise constant formula of noodling-riffage-noodling. There are dreamy, laid-back vocals on a few tracks, but these could have definitely been left out - when they pop up, they don't so much blend into the songs as they do jar the listener from the instrumental flow.

Coste Apetrea has chops, that's for sure. If that's your bag, "Rites Of Passage" will contain enough to make you foam and salivate. Just don't expect to sound that different from the last virtuosic, guitar hero album you've heard. (Online May, 25 2006)