BEYOND THE SHROUDED HORIZON

Two years after Out Of The Tunnels Mouth Steve Hackett returns with another solid effort Beyond The Shrouded Horizon. It immediately gets a thumbs up from me simply for having real drums instead of the programmed variety.

It's a diverse collection and Hackett is certainly not a man afraid to mix different genres and styles as he does here. From solo acoustic guitar - Summer's Breath, Eastern and African Influences - Waking To Life and Two Faces Of Cairo, blues - Catwalk, Ballads - Looking For Fantasy and of course prog. Loch Lomond, which open's proceedings is powerful stuff - think The Steppes off Defector until it mellows out. The Phoenix Flown follows it and is a fine instrumental with some searing guitar work. Turn This Island Earth is a mini epic shifting from a moody intro into more upbeat territory. It's marred a little by some treated vocals which fortunately are made up for by some captivating instrumental work. Vocals have never been Hackett's strong point. Acceptable certainly but it could make all the difference if he got a singer in to help out more often. This he does on Waking To Life where Amanda Lehmann takes lead vocals giving a very authentic Indian style.

Any complaints with Beyond The Shrouded Horizon are minor however and it's an album worth repeated explorations for it to fully reveal its charms. Hackett seems to be on a bit of a roll at the moment and the only ex member of Genesis doing anything that I'm interested in these days including Peter Gabriel. Well worth checking out. A very good solid 3 ½ stars.