It’s a good week to be a prog fan when two renowned artists in their own field release new albums, especially when both come with surround sound mixes. The two artists in question are Steve Hackett (of Genesis fame) and Gavin Harrison (of Porcupine Tree) and both are spectacularly gifted artists. This review covers the hotly anticipated Steve Hackett album, a work that comes off the back of Steve’s recent (and stunning) Genesis Revisited work. It comes packaged in a handsome digi-pack (as you’d expect from the mighty InsideOut label) alongside a blu ray disc which features DTS and high-res stereo tracks and it more than lives up to the heady expectation that surrounded it from the moment it was announced.
Written and recorded during the lengthy Genesis Revisited tour, ‘Wolflight’ is an album that sees Steve Hackett stretching himself to deliver what may actually be the best album of an already impressive career. Ably backed by the likes of Nick Beggs, Roger King, Chris Squire and Rob Townsend, as well as a full orchestra, Steve Hackett is at his most ambitious as he explores his own consciousness and musical development filtered through the hazy hour before dawn (or ‘wolflight’ from which the album gained its enigmatic title). From the off it is clear that Steve is in his element. This is a project born of passion and conceived by a master musician and the material is never short of stunning. Entirely unwilling to sit on his not inconsiderable laurels, Steve continues to be a progressive musician in the truest sense of the word, pushing the perceived boundaries to create something genuinely enthralling, and it may just be the case that Steve has never played better than he does here – the shows at the end of the year are liable to be incendiary.
Opening with a short instrumental, ‘out of the body’, ‘wolflight’ captivates from the off. Segueing from the howling of wolves to a truly thunderous percussion track, ‘out of the body’ is a wonderfully serpentine piece of work which sees Steve playing around with a sound that sits somewhere between Queen and classical music. It’s a captivating introduction that features a wonderfully gnarled central riff not to mention plenty of light and shade and it leads perfectly to the title track. At eight minutes, ‘wolflight’ allows Steve plenty of room to manoeuvre, and so he does, opening the song with some utterly breath-taking flamenco work before allowing it to grow, via a briefly cinematic interlude, into a piece of beautifully whimsical, folk-inspired balladry. Few artists manage, so successfully, to inject so many seemingly disparate ideas into a single song, and yet Steve manages it with aplomb, taking the listener on a musical journey that has numerous twists and turns. As the song progresses, the journey turns dark, and some of the riffing here is considerably more potent than you might expect, with certain passages having a near-industrial feel with throbbing bass and chunky riffs, placing Steve alongside King Crimson and Porcupine Tree as one of the few progressive artists capable of melding the whimsy of early progressive with the more metallic elements often found in modern prog without losing coherence. ‘Love song to a vampire’ opens with yet more stunning guitar work, the sort of guitar work that you can only acquire through years of practice and, far more importantly, an intuitive affinity for your instrument. With gorgeous vocal harmonies, ‘love song…’ is an initially pared-down work of sublime beauty that builds over nine minutes into a full-blown progressive epic complete with classical interlude and a stunning concluding solo given over a crushing and wholly unexpected riff . The song segues neatly into the sinister fairground sounds of ‘the wheel’s turning’, a carnival spectacular that references ‘white album’-era Beatles, Genesis and Caravan amidst its swirling, psychedelic take on pop music.
It’s a trip to the Far East, next, with the wonderfully evocative heat haze of ‘Corycian Fire’, a song that demonstrates that Steve Hackett, like his fellow Genesis exile Peter Gabriel, is one of the few musicians who truly understands that world music is a wonderful canvass upon which new artistic forms can be daubed. With a taut mid-tempo beat and orchestral embellishments, it’s impossible to pin down ‘Corycian fire’ except to say that it’s one of those stunning songs that you want to take with you wherever you go for days after first hearing it. ‘Earthshine’, which appears from out of the stunning classical dénouement of ‘Corycian fire’, is a gentle, lilting piece of classical guitar that, once again, showcases Steve’s absolute mastery of the instrument without appearing showy. Indeed, so beautiful is the melody conjured by Steve’s flashing fingers, that it’s hard not to feel the emotions swell long before the beautiful layered harmonies of the short, poppy ‘loving sea’ comes into view. ‘Black thunder’, in contrast, opens with folky guitars and then builds into one of the album’s most metallic tracks complete with doomy riff and thunderous drums. The album officially ends with the instrumental ‘heart song’, a mysterious, heady track that conjures the very scent of the orient in its opening bars before exploring darker, more sensuous pastures as it progresses. It is the perfect album closer, awash with rich string arrangements and sinewy bass and it leaves the listener very much wanting more.
Happily, for those who bought the deluxe edition, more awaits in the form of the brief, yet beautiful, bonus tracks ‘pneuma’ and ‘midnight sun’. Of these, ‘pneuma’ is a lush, acoustic work that is similar in feel to ‘loving sea’ with its warm vocal melodies, whilst the guitar offers echoes of the heart-breaking, yet wonderful ‘afterglow’. Neatly mixed into the album, these don’t actually feel like bonus tracks, and you could argue that those buying the standard edition are missing out on an essential coda to the album.
You may, having read this review, come to the conclusion that I’m a writer full of hyperbole. That may be the case, and it is certainly true that I allow emotion to rule my judgement of albums, attempting to convey the myriad emotions music can convey, but there is no doubt in my mind, even after multiple listens, that ‘Wolflight’ is not only one of Steve Hackett’s finest works (and that includes the stunning Genesis albums to which he lent his skill) but it is also one of the finest albums that I have had the pleasure of reviewing. The musicianship is in a world of its own and Steve Hackett must surely stand alongside the likes of David Gilmour and Eric Clapton as one of the most sublimely talented guitarists on the planet. Moreover he is a songwriter who composes music with a huge amount of emotional depth and resonance and ‘wolflight’ is, first and foremost, a journey that takes the listener to places hitherto only dreamed of. I had no idea what to expect with ‘wolflight’, but it is, without doubt, a masterpiece and a work that should be mandatory listening for anyone who considers themselves a fan of music.
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