Sea of TranquilityReviewer: Michael Popke
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Forget, if you can, the nickname that Christopher Schreiner attaches to his work and listen to his first solo album, Only Human, for what it is: Thirty-five minutes of subtly sophisticated, instrumental jazz-rock highlighted by The Guy's fluid, groovy and airy electric guitar. (A subdued three-piece band backs him.)

A Berklee College of Music grad, Schreiner was among the 10 finalists in Guitar Player magazine's 2008 Guitar Superstar Competition. But his style is less superstar than connoisseur — offering a distinct take on John Coltrane's "Syeeda's Song Flute," grooving on the seductive "An Interlude in Bléu" and infusing "Something Beautiful" with an eerie feeling of mourning. Only on "Youngblood," a scorcher that wouldn't have sounded out of place in the acid-rock scene of the late-Sixties, does The Guy act like a "superstar." But that's OK, because every all-electric-guitar album doesn't have to sizzle with rage and hubris.