VOYAGE OF THE ACOLYTE

Steve Hackett's first solo album 'Voyage Of The Acolyte' pulls you right in from first few notes of the awesome opener 'Ace Of Wands', and it grips your attention throughout the entire length of the album. What we have here in this record is one of the greatest progressive rock guitarist being 'let off the hook' to explore progressive music in his own terms. And the music on offer here is really quite diverse. You can hear all of the different strands of creativity that Steve Hackett had accumulated over the years that he was never able to record with Genesis. In 'Acolyte' Steve gets the chance to do things his way, and its absolutely fascinating and essential listening.

In order to understand this solo work from Steve Hackett it is worth-while looking back to 1975, the year in which this album was recorded. Genesis had released the controversial double album 'The Lamb Dies Down On Broadway' the year before, an album in which Hackett was relegated to a supporting role in a way that had never happened before in Genesis. In fact all of the band took a back seat to Peter Gabriel throughout the 'The Lamb', which was dominated by vocals, rather than musical passages as with the previous Genesis works.

Steve Hackett even talks about this difficult period in the liner notes. By working on a solo album he was able to explore his own creativity without needing approval from the rest of Genesis. In his own words; "It seemed like I'd finally got to become the Captain of my own ship... For me there was no turning back after Voyage of the Acolyte."

So, back to the album at hand, what we get here is hard driven prog-rock, sensitive moody and emotive compositions, and a closer which might just be the best thing Steve Hackett has ever committed to tape. In fact I'd say 'Shadow Of The Hierophant' might be one of the best progressive rock tracks ever, it has it all, power, soul, great female vocals and one of the most intoxicating and haunting endings to any prog-rock song. Guess musicians include, amongst others, Genesis alumni Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford. This is a very solid 4-star album, highly recommended to all fans of progressive music and great guitar playing!