ALT

Although others have pointed out the experimental aspects of Alt - an album on which Van der Graaf Generator dispense with vocals entirely to create a set of improvised instrumentals - the truly fatal flaw of the experiment is that it almost entirely lacks in novelty. We've already had two releases of the band improvising away; a few jams emerged on the quasi-official compilation Time Vaults whilst the second disc of Present consisted entirely of improvised instrumentals. I don't know anyone who listened to the second disc of that album and said "You know what? What VdGG should do is create a whole standalone album just of this sort of stuff, because after sitting through that I am desperate for more."

Whilst this sort of noodling might be a good way for the band to hit on musical ideas to be worked into structured compositions, there's less satisfaction to be gained from listening to the process as it's presented here. I gave this a minimum rating when it first came out, which is perhaps over-harsh, but it's the sort of excessive harshness which comes about when you're dealing with a release by an otherwise competent set of musicians who you know full well from their back catalogue can do much better.

As it stands, it's an interesting set of musical ideas but it really, really didn't need to be put out as its own album, which perhaps created expectations it could never possibly live up to. As a bonus disc for some other collection, it might have had more legs - much as the Present improvisation disc was a bonus to that. This barely, barely scrapes its way into three stars territory, and that only if you take it as an improv project which happens to have VdGG members in it (kind of like The Long Hello); judged by the same metric you would other VdGG albums, it's a disaster.