Steve Hackett classic or dud, search and destroy

Side 2 of Voyage of the Acolyte is where it's at; "Star Of Sirius" and "Shadow Of The Hierophant" would have been highlights on any Genesis album. Apparently "Hierophant" was rehearsed during the Foxtrot sessions but didn't make the cut. It's a shame, to my ears the outro of "Hierophant" sounds more apocalyptic than the "Apocalypse in 9/8" section of "Supper's Ready"

"I'd like to hear some of the later records because it didn't really excite me"

I like Spectral Mornings and Defector an awful lot. His recent output, from Out of the Tunnel's Mouth on, is all pretty strong too, but it gets a bit samey in approach, and isn't that memorable; but it does sound good while you're listening to it.

The title track from Spectral Mornings is magnificent, with enough varied nuances to keep it from being too simple and repetitive.

"The Virgin and the Gypsy" is gorgeous too, lovely misty mythopoetic stuff.

Onto Defector, "Jacuzzi" is such a funny name for music like that, joyous

"Hammer in the Sand" another super gorgeous track. I think Defector is the first album not to end with an epic track but with a sort of comedic pastiche. I think this is the first one with a bside not my collection: "Hercules Unchained"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEGh13ISQ-M

I see that my boxed set skips Cured and goes onto Highly Strung next

Highly Strung has some really good frantic, energetic tracks but there's a few that seem to be designed as singles that are not bad but definitely make it less enjoyable than the first 4 albums.

So that's the end of this 5 Classic Albums set, it's probably the most consistently enjoyable box set of this kind that I've heard so far. I don't know if I'll go for Cured next because it sounds like he's not as happy with it.

actually heard his latest one a couple days ago, first 'modern' Hackett album I've heard actually. it is pretty good though I can't say I remember much about it.

Ha, yeah, I hadn't realized until recently that he'd also been cranking out a pretty steady run of studio albums too. I guess I thought he was spending most of his time with the live Genesis material.

as far as I've heard they're all pretty good but a bit samey. when I saw him live he played a decent amount of recent stuff and I liked it all. but of course we were mostly just waiting for them to launch into Foxtrot. was an amazing show btw