Where it could have been a baggy bridges-between-cultures project, it's totally condensed and alive, making the most of Mr. Lloyd's prized lyricism as well as of the two percussionists' melodic skills.

However, La captive, and not Harold, was the hit of the show, with the Gazette Musicale (7 December 1834) calling it "a masterpiece of melodic skill and orchestration."

The Allmusic review by Terry Jenkins awarded the album 4 stars stating "Sin Daños a Terceros continues Ricardo Arjona's streak of accomplished, affecting albums that spotlights both his melodic skills and his sharp social consciousness."

THE MOODY BLUES: 'TIME TRAVELER' Polydor; four CD's ($58) One of the most embarrassing artifacts of the hippie era, the Moody Blues applied their melodic skill to grand cosmic banalities about dreams and crystal seas and "the candle of life."

With upgraded melodic skills and musical proficiency, the eventual result was bands like Green Day, which sold three million copies of its third album, "Dookie," in 1994.

They sing about rejects and romantic also-rans, with a streak of resentment as strong as their melodic skills.

Back when he was still calling himself Prince, he was blindsided by the arrival of hip-hop, which made his virtuosity and melodic skills, though not his knowledge of funk rhythms, seem slightly antique.

Lawson Rollins is an American guitarist and composer from North Carolina noted for his lightning-fast speed solos, virtuoso fingerstyle technique, and melodic compositional skills featured in his recordings.

They marry the melodic skills evinced in Casually Dressed... with a maturity that avoids the saccharine or the downright tedious.