steve hackett live rails

Released: 08 March 2011 Label: Century Media

Like any decent 1970's prog rock guitar player, Steve Hackett can meander around the fretboard playing tastefully restrained pentatonic solos for literally hours, and on Live Rails, that is exactly what he does. For two of them to be exact!

The Ex-Genesis, Ex-GTR guitar player, and famed solo artist, draws on his huge back catalogue, and utilises a classy array of supporting performers to deliver an enormously impressive set recorded over a number of gigs in Paris, London & New York during tours in 2009/2010.

Prog is not for everyone of course, and to the untrained ear, this two hour sojourn into the creativity of a 70's guitar hero, and his multi-talented session playing friends, could easily be mistaken for outtakes from the Labyrinth movie soundtrack.

However, slap bass plucks and cringe-worthy tempo changes aside it is for the most part, rather classy stuff. Highlights include the Genesis classic Blood on the Rooftops, Emerald and Ash, and the Neo-blues workout of Still Waters.

Hackett is a proper old school guitarist; you won't find double tapped string skipping arpeggiations or harmonic whammy dives and pinched bends at the end of a neo-classic run here!

Instead, the guitar sound itself, the clean, crisp warm tones, will move you along with the music, as the solos and melodies actually fit the songs in which they reside!

For all the guitar brilliance, and refined playing here, there are also odd moments where the twee lyrics that taint the prog genre, occur with references to things like moonbeams and sugarplum fairies, which to a hardened metaller like myself, albeit with a soft spot for genuinely progressive music, is a bit of a turn off! This minor blemish aside though, it is the excellence of the music throughout that makes this such a good live album.

I couldn't help thinking that the tune Sleepers though, was a lightweight re-imagining of Van Der Graaf's formidable, Sleepwalkers, even down to having a sax solo, and the opening to Slogans, is almost note for note The Clot Thickens from the brutal Plague of Lighthouse Keepers!

The album closer Clocks even cheekily take's a riff from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, and this kind of eclectic musical jigsaw of pieces, from so many different genres, in Hackett's capable hands, merely confirms the pedigree of talent onstage here, where with lesser musicians it may come over as parody or pastiche, this really works.

It goes without saying, that the musicianship throughout Live Rails is simply top notch and production too ensures the sound is crystal clear. The backing vocals, particularly by Amanda Lehman, are excellent.

For fans of Hackett, and prog rock in general then this really is a superb collection of songs. For those who don't like the unfairly maligned genre of prog, of course, sitting through this two hour marathon is probably something best avoided – at least until you are over 35!

by Steven Hargraves