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Steve Hackett - Guitar Noir CD (album) cover

GUITAR NOIR

Steve Hackett

 

Eclectic Prog

3.29 | 267 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Tarcisio Moura
Prog Reviewer
3 stars Steve Hackettīs first entry into the 90īs is a quite good work. I think Guitar Noir sounds better than most of his 80īs stuff, but by no means is superior to what he has done in the beginning of his solo career. As usual he has done a fair amount of terrific songs with others not as great. Although this CD has some kind of unity, the use osf several different musical styles throughout the album makes it sound uneven and unfocused. What I can really say is that he has mastered his vocal habilities like very few other legendary guitarrist have. Ok, he does not have a great range, but he has a fine tone and has developed his techniques on it a lot. He is - Gabriel and Collins aside of course - the best ex Genesis member to handle the vocal department.

The CD starts very well with Sierra Quemada, a great instrumental track, one of his best. Take this Pearls and There Are Many Sides To The Night keep the high profile, specially the latter, with some real fine guitar lines only Hackett can do. In The Heart Of The City and Dark As The Grave may not be as good, but is still ok. The main problem is the sequence Lost In Your Eyes and Little America. A couple of real weak songs, the former with an odd mix of AOR and blues rock and the latter just a bad AOR tune. Those two songs ruin the recordīs balance. The remaining stuff is good, except for the whimsical Vampire With A Healthy Appetite, one of Hackettīs typical tunes that always seem to plague his records. It sounds like a poor joke, but he might have taken it seriously for it appears on his live DVD Tokyo Tapes (its inclusion in this otherwise excellent show is beyond my comprehension).

Overall I think Guitar Noir is a very good album, very well done and does have a good dose of Steve Hackettīs brilliant guitar playing. Aside from those aforementioned problems, this is a pleasant album and a good sigh after several less interesting works of some years before.

Final rating: 3.5 stars

Tarcisio Moura | 3/5 |

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