This is excellent instrumental guitar rock in the style of Joe Satriani or Steve Vai, but I also occasionally hear a little Al DiMeola as well. It’s modern, upbeat and quite metal at times. The guitar work by band leader Aaron Roten goes a mile-a-minute, yet stays melodic and memorable. The opening track, “A Philosopher’s Suspicious Tale” has a rockin’ melody that recalls middle-eastern music. Next follows the title track, “Principles of Transformation.” The guitar here plays with an angular, almost King Crimson attack. I also enjoy the trading solos by Aaron and keyboard player James Pitts in this song. Pitts plays on track #5, “Sometimes Goodbye Takes Forever” as well. This piece has laid-back guitar picking with Roten soloing over it throughout most of the song until the end where the keyboards come in with a soft flute-like sound. I believe Roten may have played a might too busy on this song for the easy feel it presents. I might have preferred a soaring, more bluesy style like Jeff Beck or David Gilmour for this song. “The Colored Pencil Heist” reminds me of Brubeck’s “Take Five,” with its smooth ride and swing vibe. Roten plays acoustic guitar here with great aplomb. “Endless Manicotti Bar” gallops along until it breaks in the middle with a great easy melody. These song titles, along with “Scary Dad” and “The Great Dictator” bring a smile to my face. Mention also must be made of “Seduccion del Prototipo,” which brings Roten closest to his Al Dimeola influences with acoustic flamenco-style guitar. The CD closes with a spoken intro to the aforementioned “The Great Dictator.” This brings Super-String-Theory full circle, as it once again strongly brings to mind the Satriani/Vai solo guitar gods. Aaron Roten should definitely be included intheir club. -"Principles of Transformation" reviewed by Terry Jackson on 10/06/2006

Principles Of Transformation is the band's second release following on from their 2003 debut, Swimming In A Dutch Mordant. As I've not heard the first album it is difficult to offer any comment on changes, so this current release will have to stand on its own. On Principles... SST offer up eight highly charged instrumentals that fall neatly into the progressive, technical jazz metal slot. Almost every track features aggressive riffs with varying degrees of light and shade added during the pieces to keep the interest level keen. The rhythm section is busy, technical and tight. And that is exactly how the album kicks in - grabbing you by the throat and letting you go five minutes later. More variation is offered as we move into the title track, one of the stand out pieces from Principles.... The format of the song is fairly straightforward and relies on the dynamics of the playing. The opening minute and a half is wonderful. Light arpeggiated chords, a simple but effective melody, clever use of guitar sounds, subtle punctuated keyboards, sparse drumming are all contrasted by the brutal onslaught that follows. James Pitts adds a flurry of keyboard runs to this crunching section, trading solos with Roten, before once again the track returns to the quieter intro. Roten adds some nice legato runs here. The formula continues to the end of the track. Again contrast is offered with The Colored Pencil Heist, which takes us on along a jazzy path. This is a fairly slick lightweight track but with a few bumps and turns along the way. The Endless Manicotti Bar returns us to the metal playing field once again and four minutes of crafted arrangements and furious playing. As good a time to mention Roten's guitar sound which I ound a little difficult to get into - the effected, mid boosted tone not initially to my liking, but it sort of grew on me. I also found the sound a bit too dry at times, but decided the lack of reverberation was necessary to keep the tightness of the riffs and solos... But then Sometimes Goodbye Takes Forever comes along, a great little track, with delicate backing that allows the solos to glide across the music. Pitts makes a welcome return on this nice resting point on the album. Scary Dad has a great pulse, almost a groove, setting up the track that probably most effectively showcases Roten's guitar virtuosity. The full armoury of electric styles is put through the ringer here. Whereas the classical guitar noodlings of Seduccion Del Prototipo offer a breather before the tricky album closer kicks in. Roten adds some spoken dialogue to add weight to the grand finale. Personally I could have lived without these spoken words... but that's just me. Principles Of Transformation took a bit of listening, but was definitely worth the time spent. Initially I perceived the album to be a bit to heavy for my tastes, but like most things the more I delved in the greater depths were revealed. And this was certainly the case with Principles.... The album clocks in just under the thirty seven minute mark, perhaps considered a little lean by today's standards, however I felt that Roten had said all he needed to say. So at this length this is a concise and enjoyable album. Conclusion: 7 out of 10 -reviewed by BOB MULVEY, October 2006 www.dprp.net

"Aaron Roten - Super String Theory - "Super String Theory" by Aaron Roten is not something I would listen to, or even pick up if I was just browsing in a music store. However, the all-instrumental album is solid and definitely a new type of record I am happy to have in my CD collection. Aaron Roten is his own one-man artist. He arranged, preformed, produced and even designed the album art on the disc. The tracks on the CD are solid with a wide range of different types of instrumental music. My favorite track is No. 6 because the track starts off sounding like a hard rock track with its quick pace. Then, in the middle it slows down to become something you could hear while watching the Weather Channel. It then finishes back to the quick pace to take the listener on a roller coaster of music styles. While the entire CD differs from one song to the next, the changes in the sixth track become representative of the changes throughout the album. You have slow instrumental, smooth jazz, hard rock, Latin rhythm, everything you could want to listen to on one disc. "Super String Theory" should be part of most people's music collection, though it might be hard to find with the unique style of music and little corporate promotion." Reviewer: Alex Lang new Reviewer's Rating: 9

"Led by guitarist Aaron Roten, Super-String-Theory has followed up on the first release- Swimming in the Dutch Mordant- with this, the band's second cd- Principles of Transformation. As I would have expected, this cd seems to have taken the ideas and stylistic approaches from the first cd and progressed further into the more technical areas. They play an instrumental music that incorporates a variety of styles, most notably technically challenging progressive metal with gratuitous amounts of fusion and jazz added. While SST maintains the image of a band, (doing live gigs), this cd plays a bit more like an Aaron Roten solo cd, he is the only musician that appears on every song, and also the principle songwriter and performer through the length of the cd, he is guested by other members, particularly drummer- Steve Mason, who appears on 5 of the 8 tracks, Jimmy Pitts, does the keys on 2 songs, and there are some other contributions by other musicians, yet overall, this is Aaron's baby. With that in mind, the music is very guitar-centric, focusing first on dynamic rythms and arrangements, then applying the more aggressive guitar parts after, in may ways the music sounds a bit like what Ron Jarzombek has been trying with his project Spastic Ink, though I would say that SST's music doesn't quite elevate to that level of technical complexity as a whole. Roten experiments with unsusual concepts, not typical of the shred heads out there, his approach to writing is a bit abstract, as is his playing technique. I especially enjoy the songs that feature Pitts' keys, as they offer contrast in mood to Roten's more metal sound. This is an interesting cd for fans of the likes of Bumblefoot, Mattias IA Eklundh, Spastic Ink, Actual Time, or Behold the Arctopus, it fits squarely into that group of music perfectly." -review of "Principles of Transformation" by MJBrady from www.proggnosis.com, 20 May 2006