 STEVE
HOWE
Spectrum
Inside OUt Music 2005
www.stevehowe.com
What’s the 4-1-1?
The Yes guitarist releases his latest solo CD and incorporates a
wide variety of musical styles giving true meaning to the title of
the album.
Genre
Classic rock / instrumental
The Good
Well, if you were looking for one album that could bring a wide assortment of
musical influences and styles to you in a nice tidy package, I’d venture
to say this would be the one.
The promo materials describe the album as having a light summer time feel to
the songs. It’s a pretty apt description considering what Howe was trying
to accomplish here.
He brings his own decades of experience with a classic rock sound and mixes in
Latin grooves, blues music, some classical guitar, sitar music, Asian sounds,
and even some country tones as well.
The result is a very good album that features the country tinged rocker “Ebb
and Flow”, the bouncy “Ultra Definition”, and the blues dripping “Fools
Gold.”
“Labyrinth” mixes the classical guitar with rock guitar, and comes
out great. My favorite two songs were the lead song “Tiger’s Den” which
is a fantastic rock cut, and the song “Where Words Fail” which
comes across as the most ballad like composition, yet still has that required
rock
feel to it.
The Bad
The only real problem I had with this album was the Latin music inspired “Band
Of Light.” It just came across as a bit too drawn out for my taste.
The Verdict
I’m a big fan of vocals, so if I’m going to like an all-instrumental
CD it has got to be something special.
The album has some great material featured on it. The material is focused on
the songs themselves rather than simply being a showcase for Howe’s guitar
playing, which is a problem for a lot of instrumentalists out there in the music
marketplace.
Spectrum is the first instrumental album I’ve truly enjoyed since Joe Satriani’s
2004 release Is There Love In Space?You should definitely make plans to add this one to your collection.
Did You Know?
Besides playing in Yes, Steve Howe has released albums with GTR and Asia, and
many other solo recordings as well.
Rating:  out
of 5
-- Jay Roberts
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