Customer Reviews

Spectral Mornings

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best best place to start for Steve Hackett's solo career. "Spectral Mornings" includes plenty of the soaring, melodic electric guitar playing for which he was famous in Genesis. It also has his wonderful nylon-string acoustic work and a pleasant mix of softer songs with vocal harmonies and heavier rock tunes. There is also some of the British whimsy that usually finds its way into his work. This long-awaited remastered edition greatly improves the sound quality on this album and includes some strong bonus tracks as well. The title track may be Hackett's best electric instrumental ever, and the melody will stick with the listener long after the album is over. Hackett's first four solo albums have all been remastered in similar fashion. The first one, "Voyage of the Acolyte" is probably the next best pick.

Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett names his third solo album, 1979's "Spectral Mornings," as his personal favorite. While *my* personal fave from Steve is his first solo album, "Voyage Of The Acolyte," "Spectral Mornings" is an excellent choice. It's a terrific album, filled with a great mix of powerful rock pieces ("Every Day," "Clocks/The Angel Of Mons," and the classic, majestic title track), beautiful instrumentals ("The Red Flower Of Tachai Blooms Everywhere" and "Lost Time In Cordoba"), and even a very humorous novelty song ("The Ballad Of The Decomposing Man") thrown in for extra measure. And shining brightly throughout it all is Hackett's magnificent guitar work. "Spectral Mornings" is a classic Steve Hackett album.

I love remasters like these; you don't mind re-buying album because not only is the audio quality improved but you get worthwhile bonus tracks. With the extras the CD clocks in at close to 75 min, quite a bit more than the original. The alternate version of "Every Day" with the different ending is a standout. I like it better than the standard version. The other tracks all offer some intriguing differences as well.

This is one of Hackett's strongest albums, and if you enjoy his style you can't go wrong here.

If you're at all like me and think that the apex of Genesis' music is "Wind And Wuthering" (Hackett's last studio recording with the band), and you love the impressionistic instrumental "leaves-are-falling on an overcast Autumn day" feeling that ran through "W & W" (particularly on Hackett's track "Blood On The Rooftops", a true highlight of that masterpiece), then I have to say that the instrumental track here "Lost Time In Cordoba" is one of the few tracks I have heard from any artist, anywhere, that once again captures that feeling.
Although "Lost Time" is an instrumental and "Rooftops" had lyrics, much of the instrumentation is the same: lovely classical guitar and haunting mellotron synthesizer strings. On the Genesis track Tony Banks' keyboards did an impression of an oboe. Here Hackett's brother achieves the same effect with his flute.
This one track seems very much overlooked in Hackett's discography and it wil probably never even make it onto a compilation, so this is the only place you're likely to hear it.
If you find you enjoy this track as much as I do, the closest thing to it in Hackett's catalog is probably his first wonderful all-instrumental classical guitar album "Bay Of Kings".
I just wanted to comment on this one track in particular since it's sadly NEVER mentioned anywhere it seems-not even by Hackett's fans..I've been loving this track way back since 1979 when I first purchased the vinyl edition of this and my high opinion of the piece has only inceased over all that time..

Of all Steve Hackett's remastered albums Spectral Mornings is probably the best of the series. All of the re-issues (Voyage of the Acolyte, Please Don't Touch!, Spectral Mornings, Defector, Cured, Highly Strung) are worth having for the remastered tracks apart from any extras on the CDs, but having bonus material is nice. Having said that, Spectral Mornings offers the best selection of bonus tracks.

The four alternative mixes add new interest to already-interesting songs. The live tracks are a nice mix of acoustic (beautiful renditions of "Kim", "Blood on the Rooftops" intro., etc.) and electric work (a weighty version of "Tigermoth"), with very good sound quality. And the studio talk track is an interesting, if puzzling, piece in the vein of Jethro Tull (end of "Baker Street Blues") and Pink Floyd (throughout "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast").

This is the best of a very good series of Remasters.

Listening to this album is like going back in time when everything about music seemed so simple yet so advanced. This album, with it's baroque and haunting melodies shows how talented and skillful Steve Hackett was and still is! By no doubt, it's Hackett's finest solo album. Any fans of Genesis's Wind and Wuthering outhere?
Cheers, enjoy.

I won't spend much time discussing about whether or not this record is a "must have" (It is...). Steve Hackett is for such a long time a really creative guitarist, I remember Genesis concerts, what he was doing was way above the classic concept of the guitar hero : all his playing was geared toward being an intricate part of the music of the band - the kind of thing you may not be pretty aware of, unless you take it off... Until Seconds Out, buried in the mix, time to leave... Every step that went further deserves close attention. But from the first records Hackett made, this one has always been for me THE masterpiece (Voyage in second place, Defector third...). Why ? It's simply music. From the start with Every Day, you're not listening to guitar parts, but music. Inspiration, meaning, beauty. Nothing new for me as I bought this CD. But what I'd like to point out, it is the Digital Remaster. Once again, this brings the difference that makes a huge difference.. And the fact that I have a pretty fine Hi-Fi home system with as much power as quality may not be the only reason why my musician's ears pay so much attention to the sound. My approach is also very rational : I remember playing in the same time the "What's goin'on" (Taste) LP and the remastered CD, switching from one to the other (wow ! unbelievable...), or comparing the standard CD of Van der Graaf Generator "Pawn Hearts" with the remastered edition in the same time (discovering that I had before always listened to it through a haze...). Here again, the sound has gained in depth and dynamics, the bass are so profound and well defined, the voices are... here... And once again I've got the strange feeling to discover new music that I know so well... To the kids that were not there, back in 1979, shaking the walls of their room with the glorious lyricism of Spectral Mornings, again and again, I'm happy to say that I'm sure they will get a lot of pleasure discovering it. You know, in those days, we were not talking about "progressive music"... We were just talking about "music"...

In the end of the 70s I was a teenager sadden by Steve Hackett's separation from Genesis.. but a wonderful thing happened, it was that epoch where each one of the original members gave us those superb records and among them came Spectral Mornings... what a collage of carollenskian proportions!!! you go from calyspo to chinese to higher dimmensions to.....

Do yourself a favor, listen to it.

One of my all time Favorites from Steve. Excellent guitar solos on this cd. Must buy for Hackett and Genesis fans!

More proof that Steve Hackett is a good writer and was underused in Genesis. The title track is as good as Firth of Firth as far as guitar solo's go. Other highlights are Everyday, The Virgin and the Gypsy, Tigermoth and Clocks. Whatever happened to the singer here, I've seen him in the old tour videos from 1979 he was good and looked like a shorthaired punk rocker?