THE ACOUSTIC ADRIAN BELEW

This is an acoustic collection where most of the songs here are from Adrian Belew's past albums. There is also one King Crimson song (Matte Kudesai), a Beatles cover (If I Fell), and a Roy Orbison cover (Crying). Knowing this, you should have a pretty good idea of what this album will sound like, stripped down songs that you are used to hearing with a full band. The Beatles cover is decent, and was mostly acoustic on the original anyway. The harmonies are very nice and are just overdubs of Belew singing. The song is true to the original. The King Crimson song is quite straightforward as is the Roy Orbison cover.

Two of the songs are acoustic versions of songs that would be released on his next album "Here"; "Blinded By the Fire We Make" and "Dream Life". "Peace on Earth" is a section of "Tango Zebra". "Martha Unadorned" is a reversed version of the acoustic version of "Dream Life". I think it was placed there as filler to stretch things out to 33 minutes.

The album is very short, at only 33 minutes. The album was produced to present Belew as a singer/songwriter since most of his music is quite ornate when it comes to instruments and use of progressive elements. I suppose it accomplishes this, but it also makes this very much an un-progressive record as a result. It's nice as a mellow listening experience, but really accomplishes very little. When I want to listen to Belew's solo work, I would rather hear it as originally intended. It really doesn't do anything for me, so I would say it's for collectors/fans only and give it two stars. It might be interesting to others that might wonder what "Lone Rhinoceros" sounds like with only an acoustic guitar, but I can tell you from experience that it is rather underwhelming.