PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Steve Hackett’s latest album is a follow up to 1996’s “Genesis revisited”. This album, once again revisit’s Genesis songs and rework’s them in Steve’s own musical direction.
It can be hard to do justice to this type of music, as I can only think of one Genesis song that has ever been covered (Land Of Confusion by Disturbed ) However given that Steve was involved in the conception of most of these tracks, he has at least an understanding of why and how the songs ended up sounding like they did, this gives him a baseline with which to work from.
The opus opens with ‘The Chamber of 32 Doors’ which is given classical guitar intro you can hear Steve’s influence all over this, however dig a little deeper and further on in this collection we find his sometimes odd choice of vocalist, adding soprano sax to ’Blood on the Rooftops’ , and even involving Phil Collins son, Simon on vocals does make you think has he done the right thing, however the answer is mostly a Yes.
Steve strikes a mostly successful balance, no more so than on the album’s true highlight, unsurprisingly, the 23-minute epic ‘Supper’s Ready.’ Here Steve utilizes several vocalists, none of whom I would have picked, however that is the beauty of Steve, taking this song somewhere it has never been before. Having Opeth’s Mikael Akerfeldt coupled with Simon Collins brings a new depth to this track, and just when you think you couldn’t be more surprised, up pops Conrad Keely to give an almost punkish vocal performance to the middle section, Steve grows this song by adding extra guitar flourishes throughout before ending with a furious finger-tapped solo. Impressive.
However not all the vocal choices work for me, Gary O’Toole is far too aggressive on ‘Broadway Melody of 1974′, while Nik Kershaw seems positively lost singing ‘The Lamia’. Amanda Lehmann seems to think the gentle acoustic of ‘Ripples’ is her cue to warble all over it in a throaty vibrato style that does little to enhance the track, in fact I find her vocal distracting.
Steve other choices of vocalists do work however; Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree), Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth), Simon Collins, Conrad Keely, Francis Dunnery, Neal Morse, John Wetton, and Nad Sylvan all combine with Steve’s vision in creating outstanding pieces of music.
However, at the end of the day, Steve has taken more risks with this album than the previous, so some gambles pay off, some don’t. This is a very well thought piece, having far more positives than negatives, and I feel this will get the nod of approval from the die hard Genesis fans. 7/10
Disc 1:
01. The Chamber of 32 Doors
02. Horizons
03. Supper’s Ready
04. The Lamia
05. Dancing With the Moonlit Knight
06. Fly on a Windshield
07. Broadway Melody of 1974 
08. The Musical Box
09. Can Utility and the Coastliners
10. Please Don’t Touch
Disc 2:
01. Blood on the Rooftops
02. The Return of the Giant Hogweed
03. Entangled
04. Eleventh Earl of Mar
05. Ripples
06. Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers
07. …in That Quiet Earth
08. Afterglow
09. A Tower Struck Down
10. Camino Royale
11. Shadow of the Hierophant
