THE ROAD

Recently I was reading a Genesis biography called Turn It On and it mentioned this little band where Steve Hackett (and his brother john) had played before he joined Peter Gabriel & co. As everything Genesis related interests me - specially their 70`s stuff - I went out to get this CD to see what is all about. I guess it was one of Hackett´s first recordings and it shows, for you´ll probably will not recognize his style upon hearing The Road. Even his brother John i sonly playing acoustic guitar here (he would change to the flute after being introduced to King Crimson´s debut album). There are some nice guitar solos but they are few and far between.

As for the group itself, Quiet World is shows a very strong influence (almost copycats, in fact) of The Moody Blues around the time of their Days Of Future Past. they did thrown in a few sax solos and bits of King Crimson here and there to spice it up a little bit. It´s also a concept album. As most of you know, this kind of undertaking was a novelty at the time and soon everybody was doing it, even if very few bands were talented enough to pull it off, at least convincingly. And, you guess it, Quiet World was not really one of them. The concept is silly, the songwriting is only average and the lyrics will make you think The Moody Blues wrote deep philosophy in comparison. Not that the album is bad. In fact, if you like MB and don´t care much for originality, you should try to listen to this album (but I don´t recommend you to buy it). On the plus side, I should mentioned that the songs are well arranged and orchestrated, and some vocals are impressive (echoes of early Bee Gees too). Maybe with time and experience they could produce something more consistent and original, but they broke up soon after this album was out and the Hacketts were already flexing their muscles for much bigger things.

All in all I find out The Road to be a product of the time. Nice, but ultimately unimpressive. More a curio than anything else.

Rating: two stars.