This review was in the British 'interplanetary sounds' music magazine Straight No Chaser. It's the one with 4Hero on the cover, for anyone who wants to check it out.

Prince
‘The Rainbow Children’
(NPG/Pinnacle)

Prince has been leaving his heel prints everywhere as of late. All without releasing anything of more than a footnote. It is an abstract achievement; one that can be credited to the new generation of boundary bashing acolytes (D’Angelo, Beck, Timbaland, OutKast can raise their hands) whose faith in the Princely belief system - where no musical form should ever be considered alien to another - runs deep. And although Prince‘s autonomous access to the genre pool has been fully justified, stretching across a wide stylistic breadth is no longer a surprise. You expect it from him. In this regard, ‘The Rainbow Children’, a one-track musical of sorts, is no different. Funk. Rock. Soul. All present and intact. Still, Prince can locate commonalities between disparate forms better than most. And this is jazzier than he’s ever sustained for an entire record, the nineties’ unfocused stabs at each and every genre in existence replaced by his oft-forgotten intrinsic, natural sense of fusion. There are elaborate arrangements here, with masses of dense harmonic and rhythmic activity that threaten to overtake the band with every move. Though the production is slightly dated in places, there is more than enough interesting, even classic songcraft to merit this the most cohesive endeavour of the mid-west funk conductor in some time. (SC)