MOMENTUM

2.5 stars, really. It´s interesting - and also quite telling - that this Steve Hackett acoustic album is so obscure. it is even more classical driven than his first, Bay Of Kings. And that´s the problem here. It is almost pure classical music and nothing else. The instrumentation is kept to the acoustic nylon stringed guitar most of the time. Sometimes, just sometimes, you can hear a flute in the background and some very discreet string keyboards. As usual, Hackett does display his fine technique, but this is an album for the ones who like acoustic guitar classical music. The prog element is missing here and tehre is not rock, of course.

Having said that, I must say this is not a bad album. It has some good melodies here and there, but don´t expect anything with the same quality of something like Horizons or After The Ordeal. The best tracks to my ears are Vigil and his arrangement for the traditional tune Bourée. Concert For Munich is also quite interesting. The rest is nice too, but the CD gets a little boring after some time. SH is capable of much beter things, acoustic ou otherwise.

If you like classical music played on the guitar, there is a chance you like this album very much. But I don´t think SH wrote his best instrumental pieces on this album. It just didn´t click for me.