Steve Howe
The Steve Howe Album
I don't know if he's been confirmed for another member in the bowels of these pages I haven't read yet but my guess is a strong finger point at
Nea for this one.
Starts off exactly as I thought it would after seeing that it was a prog album from the late 70's and recommended by who I assume is Nea. I'm so fickle when it comes to prog albums. You have to really stay away from that E,L&P sound to impress me and so far this album has been doing it. The first track "Pennants" has some great guitar work on it and some signature synth work. I'm digging so far. Second track "Cactus Boogie" is aptly named. This track is like a honky tonk western movie montage. The drastic difference between the first two tracks has me pretty excited to see where this whole thing is going to go. It's like a proggy King Gizzard album. Lol, just kidding, no it's not.
I just remember to add that first track to my 60's/70's rock/blues/prog playlist.
Alright. I'm not into the vocals unfortunately. Stick to the guitar Steve.
Still some really great guitar work on here though. I'm really enjoying the country/bluegrass influences on this album. It's like a pallet cleanser for your ears. Crisp guitar work and violin/fiddle. I like that. One time I was at a Between the Buried and Me show, and I forget exactly what track this is featured on, but they break down into a bluegrass jam for about 25 seconds and it totally filled the room with joy before we got back to the aggression. It's neat.
Wow. This album just got all classical on me with this "double rhondo" track. It's a little too "Asia" for me but by no means a bad track at all. In fact, this whole album has been a nice listen with some really great highlights for me. I have one more track to go but I'll just go on to say that I enjoyed this very much. It was able to slip under the wall I have set up that seems to block out a lot of prog stuff and only let a few bands/artists into my brain. It's an achievement really. Love all the different sounds with the bluegrass and classical pieces.
Nice quiet piece to end this. Thanks for the album Nea(Or another person if my guess was wrong).