by Steve Huey

Odyssey is a more subdued, polished collection seemingly designed for mainstream radio airplay. Vocalist Joe Lynn Turner gives the set a smooth, professional feel, and Yngwie Malmsteen's playing is more mellow, due partly to the fact that he was still recovering from his near-fatal car accident when the album was recorded. However, all of this works to the detriment of the music: the mellowness of Malmsteen's guitar work makes him sound constrained and passionless, and the album shows little difference in approach from his previous output, lending credence to critics' charges that Malmsteen plays with mindless technique at the expense of substance, fire, and emotion.