SPECTRUM

Steve's instantly recognizable guitar sound is here on this completely instrumental album. Steve's backing band consists of his two sons on keyboards and drums respectively, Rick Wakeman's son Oliver also on keyboards, and Tony Levin on bass. However, it is the guitars that drive the album and the backing band is really just a backing band, a solid one but still just a backing band. Except on a few occasions were they are allowed to break loose.

The compositions have some different styles but a jazzy flavour is predominant and somehow most of the songs have a particular sound that makes them all sound rather similar. Spectrum is about as good as the instrumental Turbulence album, but not in my opinion as good as Elements or The Grand Scheme Of Things. As much as I love Steve, I think that this album is rated too high here on Prog Archives at this moment. It is very well worth checking out, but it is hardly essential.

With a running time of a whole hour it tends to get a bit samey towards the middle despite the generally high quality of the music. This is a problem that haunts most of Steve's solo albums.

Not Steve Howe's best solo album, but certainly not his worst either. I would go for The Grand Scheme Of Things and Elements first.