After his incredible guitar work on what proved to be the Red Hot Chili Peppers finest albums - 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik - John Frusciante's 1992 crash from the zenith of rock'n'roll stardom seemed a jaw-dropping waste. Despite his path leading him into a pit of self-destruction, some would agree the resultant body of solo work was more potent than anything he and the chilli peppers had conjured or would ever concieve.

Frusciante's latest release The Empyrean is undoubtedly as fine a record as he's produces so far, no mean feat considering his magnificient work on (amongst others) 2004's Inside if Emptiness and The Will to Death. The prevalence of electric keys and piano over guitars and spared vocals, drag this latest offering off on a tangent dissimilar to his earlier albums; surprisingly the minimalism lends more attention to the quality of each guitar and vocal passage.

'Before the Beginning' opens the album with a classic Frusciante solo and leads beautifully into an interpretation of Tim Buckley's haunting 'Song to the Siren'. The slight overuse of Vocal effects detract from the guts of some mid-tracks; though, with elements of early Crowded House, 'Central' proves one of the high points of Frusciante's song-writing career.

As diverse as we've heard him to date, The Empyrean gives little indication of a telent in any sort of declien. While a lingering sense of a bit too much filler remains upon early inspection, killer moments reveal themselves steadily and this recording grows exponentially better with each subsequent spin.