1998's
Rites of Summer is the album on which
Spyro Gyra once and for all abandons every pretense toward being anything other than a slickly commercial instrumental pop outfit with occasional feints toward the smoothest of smooth jazz. As always with
Spyro Gyra, the slower and more impressionistic tunes are much more interesting than the upbeat songs. Where "Daddy's Got a New Girl Now" sounds like the backing track to an unreleased
Deniece Williams single and "No Man's Land" and "Captain Karma" sound as if they were written as background music for the local forecasts on The Weather Channel, "Claire's Dream," by bandleader and saxophonist
Jay Beckenstein, is haunting and memorable, and keyboardist
Tom Schuman's "Innocent Soul" is a downright lovely mélange of
Brian Eno and
Erik Satie at their most lyrical. Fans who admired the more complex and occasionally even edgy sound of
Spyro Gyra's earliest albums will be disappointed, but those who liked the rest of their '80s releases will find this comfortingly familiar. ~ Stewart Mason