FOR TO NEXT

When listening to this album, it is difficult to believe that just a few short years before this, Steve Hillage had been on of the premier progressive rock guitarists and composers on the scene. If you are looking for the soaring guitars and complex prog epics of "Fish Rising" or "L", don't look here.

"For To Next" is a collection of bland, electronic sequence based pop drivel, with an occasional unremarkable guitar solo pasted on top. In short, this album is the majority of nineteen eighties pop music packed together in a microcosm. There is not a hint of prog, or very much of any interest here.

By 1983 Steve Hillage had largely stepped back from being a recording artist - his flurry of activity in 1979 was surely enough to exhaust anyone. Instead, he settled into a new career as a producer, and helped a number of up and coming synthpop and New Wave acts bring albums to fruition.

Something of that style has clearly rubbed off on him here. Delivered by just Hillage and Miquette Giraudy, this is a set of New Wave-influenced songs with vocals largely coming second to hypnotic electronic beepling and, gently, in the background, Steve's guitar playing. As a blend of synthpop, New Wave, and a very mild space rock influence, it's OK, though the accompanying instrumental set And Not Or is better.