SPECTRAL MORNINGS

This album just doesn't do the job for me. It's a set of different ideas piled together: average ideas with average implementation, but the idea itself to put all this together is far from good. The album is not so bad, but it's inconsistent. Maybe that was meant to be the modus vivendi of the album, but even if it was, it's done inconsistently. Hackett missed the point showing diversity of styles. How on earth that could be wrong? Well, this is a colourful palette, but tones and hues are wrong.

There are some nice tracks, such are "Spectral Mornings" and "Tigermoth" and "Lost Time In Cordoba" to some extent, but the majority of the tracks are just dreadful. "Every Day" is a jolly tune, but it's radio-friendly (which is not necessarily bad), not challenging at all, and it sounds extremely dated. "The Virgin And The Gypsy" is really nice tune, with sweet chorus. Perhaps a bit too sweet: it sounds like a mixture of late 70's QUEEN and Christmas Carols. "The Red Flower Of Tachai..." is not spoiled by some heavy guitar/synth/whatever orchestration, actually it sounds very authentic. OK, but considering the fact that the album is a mixed bag, it makes the song just pointless effort.

The next two tracks ("Clocks" and "The Ballad Of Decomposing Man") are just weak: "Clocks" remind me of PINK FLOYD's "Time" way too much. Not to mention absolutely useless drumming. A nice MiniMoog work, though. The "Ballad..." is not worth mentioning, it's just a bad idea. It's not very funny neither.

"Spectral Mornings" is not THAT bad. I do respect Mr. Hackett's work. He's not an ego-maniac doing overblown guitar-oriented albums. There are some good ideas here and there, but they are unable to crack the album's crust and reach a listener. Emotions are present but they are drowned under bad implementations or scattered because of pointless diversity. Two and a half stars is just fair enough. However, you should give it a try, it seems that majority of prog fans like it.