SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND & SPECTRAL MORNINGS: LIVE AT HAMMERSMITH

Another year, another Steve Hackett release, another version of Genesis music... This time Craig Brundell is on the drums and not the long time musician of Hackett Gary O'Toole. The Flower kings connection is still there but with Jonas Reingold on bass. So we have two competent players to fill the spot and completer the usual line-up. The first set is the solo material of Hackett with songs from ''Spectral Morning'' and ''At The Edge of Light''.

I was keeping a lot of focus on Robin Townsend playing on flute and sax because the sound of his instruments was placed beautifully in the back of the room by Steven Wilson with another great 5.1 surround mix. Nad Sylvan make his appearance at the end of the first set when the band played the complete SEBP album with a Jazz version of ''I Know What I like''. Then the unfinished song ''Déja Vu'' is played, not a bad song, but not great either.

If you have already many Hackett live releases, this one is not a necessary addition to your collection unless you have a home theater system where you can hear for the first time a good surround mix of a concert from Hackett. 3 stars for the cd and 4 stars for the DVD. (3.5)