STEVE HACKETT

All of Steve's live material is so great. As per usual, the first part is some of his personal work with some recent material represented. Sounds great and a well balanced selection. The second portion being Genesis material, is also well balanced and played. The light show, the stage, the sound, the musicianship, everything shown on this live video shows exactly why this guy keeps being able to fill large venues around the world. Keeps the spirit of the 70's Genesis material alive much better than did Genesis of the 80's and beyond. If he keeps making these live albums and videos, I'll keep buying them!

This was a bit of a surprise. This was tagged as "symphonic prog" on RYM, but it doesn't typically feel that way. In fact, there are dense textures bordering on space rock, reminiscent of plenty of things you would hear in Germany at the time. Steve Hackett's Spectral Mornings seems to take a few pages out of the book of Pink Floyd, especially where DSOTM and WYWH were concerned, relying on accessible yet shifting textures to do a large portion of the work, striking a near-perfect balance between prog rock inventiveness and rock accessibility. It's quite a serene and pleasant experience throughout. There is one little problem that's present throughout, however: the songs don't seem to bear the same kind of thematic depth or presence at first. The depth gradually increases throughout the album, but there are still a couple of empty feelings involved. Overall, this is a damn good one, but not as deep or catchy as DSOTM.

Hackett to Pieces!!

The follow up to the somewhat lightweight Cured LP saw Steve Hackett still tying to give Charisma the hit single they appeared to be demanding.He succeeded-sort of with "Cell 151" which reached the dizzying height of 66 in the UK singles chart for about 2 weeks.Clearly Hackett was not cut out as a hitmaker.As for the attendant LP Highly Strung the good news was that it was much more Proggy than the previous album.Although it was essentially just Hacket and Magnus as with Cured, this time they had Ian Mosely(Yes-that one!) on drums and what a difference it makes to the overall sound.

The opening track"Camino Royale", although a farly conventional song, opens and closes with some very Prog instrumentation.Hackett clearly loved this song as it oftern featured in his concerts.There are a few rather Poppy tracks as well as Cell 151, including "Walking Through Walls" which unfortunately relies a bit too much on the very 80's gated drum sound and "Give it Away" which is actually a prety decent track and reminds me of the sort of song Trevor Rabin led Yes were doing at the time .I would say Steve Hackett's vocal were a lot stronger on this album than on Cured.

Apart from "Camino Royale", the real standout tracks for me are the three instrumentals."Always Somewhere Else" is a two hander basically, the first half being a very jazzy semi improvised jam before the guitar takes off providing an uplifting second half."Group Therapy" is superb guitar-keyboard fusion fest which goes through several themes.It is easily the best track on the album-certainly the Proggiest.The closing track "Hackett to Pieces" reprises the opening and closing instrumental themes off "Camino Royale" with another burst of aggressive Prog Rock.

Overall I feel the album is only slightly compromised by Hackett's obvious attempts to get more Commercial but I still rate this album highly.

4 stars

After hitting the top 10 in the British Album Charts for the first (and sadly only) time with the overall very Proggy Defector LP, one would assume Steve Hackett would follow up with more of the same.Sadly no as the follow up album Cured showed.So what changed? Firstly Hackett simply could not afford a full band this time.Secondly he felt under pressure to provide Virgin with a hit or at leat a more commercial sounding album.Thirdly and perhaps most significantly he wanted to prove himself capable of handling vocals.

Overall this new direction did not automatically have to lead to a sub-standard album.The main problem is he made a couple of mistakes in the presentation of the album.Firstly he decided to not use his wife Kim Poor for a cover unlike all his previous albums and go for a photo of himself enjoying himself with his cure (Cured-geddit?) near a beach.Hmm-shades of Love Beach by ELP....Not only that but like the ELP album he front-loaded the album with a couple of fairly straightforward :"Pop" songs.Not something we expect of this guitar hero.Ofcourse the very light production compounded by his fairly weak vocals and the dreaded use of drum machines made for a fairly underwelming experience for the listener. Fortunately and the truth is Cured is actually quite an enjoyable album in many respects.The songs although with one notable exception not even remotely Proggy, probably arranged to suit his limited vocals are actually quite engaging in their own way.The notable exception is "Overnight Sleeper" which features a particularly engaging Latin style instrumental section showcasing John Hackett's always superb flute playing.The album also includes the dramatic "The Air Conditioned Nightmare" which is one of his best instrumentals.

Overall while not an essential album it is still worthy of 3 stars

Spectral Mornings Part 2

At first glance- and listen, Defector seems like it is joined at the hip with Spectral Mornings.Similar artwork, same line up and so on.Also as with the previous album Defector is conceptual in nature making references to the uneasy truce between Russa and the USA at the time it was recorded. It opens with"The Steppes"- a terrific brooding and slow burning instrumental showcasing his unique guitar style as well as some fine flute playing by John Hackett.The next track "Time to get Out" is a fairly straightforward rocker but nothing more.The next track, "Slogans" is another excellent instrumental showcasing Hackett's unique style.The whole band is on fire on that track."Leaving" is a fairly straightforward acoustic song and the closing instrumental track on side 1 "Two Vamps as Guests" showcases Hackett's nylon string playing while referencing the opening track.

Side 2 starts promisingly enough with "Jacuzzi" another sprightly and melodic instrumental featuring more excellent flutework.."Hammer In The Sand" is a yet another instrumental this time showcasiing Nick Magnus's keyboard skills."The Toast" is a pleasant song with a particularly beautiful symphonic instrumental section clearly iunspired by Classical Composer Satie. The second last track "The Show" is a surprising;y upbeat with a baseline making it sound a bit dangerously close to Disco for my liking.The closing track "Sentimental Institution" is one of those oddball tracks Hackett is so fond of, this time a cod 4o's crooner using the optigan to create the old school sound.

Overall I have mixed feelings about this album.Parts of it -mainly the instrumentals are flat out brilliant.The songs are a bit pedestrian to be honest but given that half the tracks are instrumental and really do showcase both Hacketts and Magnus so well this is another essental Hackett album

5 stars-just

Half a century ago, at the time Yes were taking their really productive sabbatical leave of 1975, Steve Hackett turned a two months break of his band Genesis into a chance to work on a solo debut of his own, namely Voyage Of The Acolyte, and certainly made good use of it.

The album opens under dense jazz-rock spitfire, supplied by the trio of Hackett with bandmates Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins (who was taking also an intensive fusion training with Brand X by then) as sidekicks on bass and drums repectively. Not the best moment of the album, to my taste at least, but a good appetizer anyway. Other rather uncook moment comes with A Tower Struck Down, a piece co-written with brother John that sounds like an outtake from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway to me, yet a bit overdone with studio trickery.

The acoustic moments of both Hands Of The Priestess and The Hermit are filled with pure idyllic magic, being the cor anglais in the last one played by Robin Miller, who keeps spreading charm with his oboe in Star Of Sirius, a track sung by Collins alterning moods ranging from bucolic to hectic that brings back the fusion pyrotechnics, with better result this time around.

Shadow Of The Hierophant comes last (but not least) as the piece de resistance of the album. Of course, it all comes down to what you feel about iterative forms in this point. I don't want to reduce this to a superficial resemblance with other well-known pieces using that same technique. This works for me, and I think that's for good reasons: First, the impeccable sense of dynamics and ornamentation constructing over the repetition of rythmic patterns and chordal sequences. Second, the exquisitely ethereal vocals by Sally Oldfield, leading the way to a path not dissimilar to that opened a couple of years before by her brother, and confirmed at the time with Ommadawn.

I have to say that my rating comes, not from the algebraic sum of each track figures, but from the feeling that this album is excellent as a whole, because of its outstanding creative freedom, and its freshness.

How many live recordings of 'Firth of Fifth' (on CD and/or blu-ray) do you need, really? And of 'Clocks', 'Every Day' and 'Los Endos', to name just three numbers that have become Steve Hackett live regulars? Just like you, I had my doubts about this release, but if you compare it to the many Hackett live albums that came before it, there's one significant difference: in Craig Blundell, Steve found a young and energetic drummer who adds a lot of pizzazz to every song he appears in. I'd even go so far as to say Blundell almost totally TRANSFORMS those tunes, so that you hear them anew. Perhaps SELLING ENGLAND never sounded so good on stage. The sense of newness is reinforced by the contributions of saxophonist Rob Townsend, who plays a far more prominent role than in earlier concerts, sometimes adding delightful new improvisations, sometimes playing a melody that was originally taken up by Tony Banks's keyboards, and sometimes just clowning around. (By the end of the show, Townsend's clowning actually started to grate, at least when I was watching the blu-ray.) I also have nothing but respect for Nad Sylvan, who performs the old Genesis vocals with great subtlety, even accomplishing the near-impossible: equalling Peter Gabriel in the ultra-theatrical 'The Battle of Epping Forest'. (It's probably better to keep schtum about Hackett's own lead vocal on one or two pieces from SPECTRAL MORNINGS.) Add some glorious singing by Amanda Lehmann, a lot of sophisticated playing on bass and twelve-string by Jonas Reingold, AND a superb lightshow, and you've got a release that should delight any Steve Hackett acolyte.

P.S. I'd never heard of 'Déja Vu', which seems to have been discarded from the original SELLING ENGLAND album, but it turned out to be a delight, with Hackett's lead guitar simply soaring.

I used to assume the reason Steve Hackett felt constrained while with Genesis and was not allowed to cut loose with more guitar solos but I think the real reason is his actual songs were being rejected with "Please Don't Touch" being the classic example. Having said that I was expecting him to show of his considerable chops on his solo albums. His first two albums confounded those expectations in some ways. Yes there was plenty of superb musicianship to be found and some quite sophisticated compositions as well but not a lot in the way of blistering solos. All that changes with his third album -Spectral Mornings. The opening track "Everyday" starts as another catchy song but after barely two minutes and twenty seconds through he just lets rip with some of his best electric guitar playing ever and it is not a brief interlude either- he just blazes away for another four minutes with some exquisitely melodic lines until the song finally fades away. What a great way to start an album. "The Virgin and the Gypsy" is another showcase for his compositional skills with some beautiful flute soloing by John Hackett. The brief instrumental "The Red Flower of Tachai" shows a different side to Hackett-a lovely bit of exotic World Music featuring Cantonese Koto and bamboo flutes. The next major piece "Clocks-Angel of Mons" refers to British soldiers believing they were assisted in holding of a German army by guardian angels during the battle of Mons.It's Hackett in full aggressive prog mode with an insistent riff possibly inspired by the beginning of Carmina Burana. It also features an explosive drum solo by John Shearer. Hackett cannot resist the temptation to include a humorous song to round off side1-"Ballad of the Decomposing Man" Side2 opens with "Lost Time In Cordoba" a serene and melancholic instrumental featuring some lovely guitar classical guitar. The track actually leads directly to the WW1 epic "Tigermoth" It is another slab of intense heavy prog starting with a particularly menacing staccato riff which then dissolves into a highly atmospheric synth section with Hackett providing some extroadinary sounds presumably intending to evoke an aerial battle.After the original staccato riff reprises even more menacingly with a huge organ sound backing the tracks mood lightens dramatically with some gorgeous flutes giving the sense of being in the air but after a battle.The acual song section has an almost Music-Hall ambience and lyrically is about a recently killed pilot being reunited with the ghosts of his comrades who have also perished. The mood far from being depressing and sad is actually quite buoyant. After all the drama of the preceding comes the real showcase of the album which is title track. This instrumental arguably represents the absolute peak of Hackett's guitar prowess.For all those fans who wish he would solo more often is treated here to an almost non stop impassioned solo that seems to go on forever.

For me Spectral Morning is the moment Steve Hackett finally delivers the goods and is arguably his greatest ever album.This is Hackett well and truly playing to his strengths

A very solid 5 stars

In some ways Steve Hackett's follow-up to his debut was even more important. It was after all the first solo record he produced after he left Genesis so he would have presumably been apprehensive about justifying his decision to leave especially as Genesis's popularity was gaining in momentum. In contrast to the debut which was a concept album with a fairly integrated style, Please Don't Touch is almost polar opposite being a wildly eclectic mix of styles including Pop,Classical,Folk,Straight-ahead Prog-of course and even a bit of R'N'B with absolutely no connecting feature or concept at all.He also decided to make the record in the USA employing the services of the likes of Steve Walsh and Phil Ehart from Kansas, Chester Thompson, African American Folky Richie Havens and a then relatively unknown R'n"B singer Randy Crawford. Of course his trusty collaborator John Hackett is present as always So what's the verdict? As well as being Steve Hackett's most wilfully eclectic and stylistically diverse albums, it is also and overwhelming success .It has everything. "Narnia" with it's striking 12 string riff and highly melodic vocal lines is a perfect opener."Carry On Up The Vicarage" manages to be quirky, silly and extremely Proggy all at the same time featuring the most bonkers vocals from Steve Hackett himself."Racing in A is a fast paced rocker with a chorus that is catchy and hell, "Kim" , obviously inspired by his then wife Kim Poor (and who provides the wonderful cover art) is an exquisite slice of Satie inspired classical guitar and flute tune."How Can I?" featuring the gravelly vocals of Richie Havens is highly melodic slice of US style folk.And that's just side 1 Side 2 opens with one of the most gorgeous R'n'B songs I have ever heard with absolutely stunning vocals by Randy Crawford.No, it is most decidedly not Prog or even Prog-related and I can imagine many Prog fans dismissing this song as a bit of throw-away fluff.Trust me-it is not.In fact how this song was not released as a single is to this day a complete mystery to me.After the brief atmospheric "Land Of A Thousand Autumns" comes what is surely the pivotal track.I will give the other members of Genesis the benefit of the doubt on the basis that I have never heard what "Please Don't Touch" sounded like when they allegedly tried it out in the studio. Maybe it was half baked at the time- who knows? But the bottom line is that they passed on that track in favour of "Wot Gorilla" on Wind And Wuthering. Wot indeed- more like WTF! The title track is just a slice of pure high energy Prog magic with it's twists and turns, it's siren like guitar figures it's relentless driving rhythm. No, Genesis rejected it in favour of a Phil Collins endorsed half baked clunker. Seriously, the title track off Please Don't Touch is all the evidence I need to conclude that leaving Genesis was indeed the correct decision. Anyway after that slice of dramatic Prog the album calms down with the experimental and earie "The Voice Of Necam" featuring more sublime nylon string playing and the elegant and literally uplifting "Icarus Ascending". Overall, while I think better was to come with his next album,I have a particular fondness for Please Don't Touch. How can I give it less than five stars?

Steve Hackett's Voyage Of The Acolyte produced while he was still in Genesis is a fairly assured debut. All of the tracks are based on Tarot Cards and anyone familiar with the guitarist would be very aware of his belief in the spirit world. "Ace Of Wands" in particular is a great opening track with plenty of intricate interplay. The epic closing track "Shadow of the Hierophant" is his first "Epic" and features Sally Oldfield's gorgeous vocals. Apparently the song was written with Mike Rutherford but was rejected by Genesis for inclusion on one of their albums. It could have potentially fitted on Nursery Cryme or even Foxtrot with its intricate quiet/loud dynamics but to be brutally honest I never felt it was fully developed especially with its slightly anticlimactic ending. "A Tower Struck Down" is the heaviest track on the album with its insistent staccato riff. It reminds me slightly of early King Crimson with its somewhat experimental and abstract edge. The rest of the album is quite pleasant- lots of acoustic guitar, flute, cor anglais, cellos added to the mix.Personally I almost feel guilty that I do not love this album more than I actually do.I realize that for a lot of Hackett fans the debut is the "One" and I can see why -it is certainly got that old-school proggyness not disimilar to Gabrial era Genesis but personally I prefer the next three albums more.

4 stars