Search - Steve Hackett :: Till We Have Faces

Are You A Good Guitarist?

WAJWAJ | United States | 09/24/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Then you should listen to "Myopia." A percussionist? Check out "What's My Name" and "The Rio Connection." Blues guitarists should take in "Let Me Count The Ways." And for anyone who remembers lullabys, drift off to "Taking The Easy Way Out." This album has many different forms, all stirred with a latin feel. Very original for its time and it still holds up well. It's great fun."

Drums Overload

Colin Dodds "Col" | Portsmouth, UK | 01/12/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Following an acoustic album, "Bay Of Kings", see my review, Steve Hackett kept us guessing with this offering. Although not a favourite of mine it does have some high points. Recorded in Brazil, with I believe mostly local musicians, Steve seems to be unsure where this is going and the drums are very much to the forefront, although he clearly intended this. Standout tracks are "Let Me Count The Ways", a bluesy number, not really revisited until "Blues With A Feeling" some years later. "The Rio Connection" and "Duel" which chugs along and certainly recalls the Spielberg film which it is dedicated to. Tracks like "What's My Name" and "Myopia" don't really go anywhere for me, and the closing track "When You Wish Upon A Star" the Disney standard is very pleasant, but seems out of place on this album. A bit of a hit and miss affair, but one has to say that the musicianship is excellent as always on a Hackett album."

Enhance THIS

Roscoe | Behind the Zion Curtain | 04/11/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Rarely do I qualify a review, but for this CD, it's a must. I am a musician who has been a terriffic fan of Genesis--particularly Banks and Hackett, to include Steve's prolific solo career. It is crystal clear that Steve Hackett is one of the real gems of modern music. His craftmanship is to gawk at, even his early work with Genesis on stage, sitting on his stool in a professorial repose--playing that intrepidly wrought haunting acoustic-sensitive dynamic, poker faced--sporting that goofy goatee and those nerdish black horn-rimmed eye glasses that conjure visions of Sigmund Freud after having lectured at a neuropsychiatric conference in Vienna, or even Austin Powers laying in an alley after a two week bender.



I recall fondly Hackett's post-Genesis solo show at the Tower Theatre in Philly--I was in the second row at center stage, basking in resplendant bliss as the dude started the show with just the acoustic on a stool in ambient room light--sans beard and sans bravado--cruising right into the first teaser of the night, a somewhat slower and more intense version of "Horizons." Oh MAN!



I love great music and my mind is wide open to all that lies in the entire audible range that is innovative, unique, distinct, and bizarre--but I do not get "Til We Have Faces." My menagerie of Steve Hackett CDs runneth over and I consider it a collecter's set. That is the ONLY reason that I have not winged that CD out of my window like a Frisbee, to be used as a skeet target. The experience of listening to this CD for the first time is probably similar to the feeling one might get while watching a US Air Force air show,during which one of the F-14's suddenly stops in mid air and then drops to the ground in a horrendous explosive crash. I sat in grieving disbelief at the first listen. I listened one more time before I laid the corpse to rest.



While I believe that enhancing this morose aberration is tantamount to removing kernels of corn from petrified yak excrement, I respect those who differ with my opinion. That is what makes music so great--it doesn't matter what other people say, as long as it moves the listener, it's worthwhile. In this case, I neither like it or even get it. That said, given Steve Hackett's track record for producing utter greatness, I consider this one particular effort a mere hiccup in what is otherwise--both qualitatively and quantitatively, an incredible body of musical work of which any artist from any era could be proud.

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