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Released by InsideOut Music with the following release date:
Watch the Video: Steve Hackett Introduces Genesis Revisted II here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhtx_N7fjk8
Disc 1
DIsc 2
Steve Hackett
With:
Mikael Akerfeldt
Steven Wilson
Conrad Keely
Jakko Jakszyk
Nad Sylvan
Nick Beggs
Steve Rothery
Francis Dunnery
Roine Stolt
John Wetton
Nik Kershaw
John Hackett
Having enjoyed Hackett's recent projects (2 double albums in the last few years, Squackett, Djabe...) and also his first Genesis Revisited from 1997, I was anxiously waiting to get Genesis Revisited II in the mail...
My first impressions of GR II was a slight disappointment. Differently from the orignal Genesis Revisited, that offered very different and sometimes almost shocking versions of the originals, GR II gives us very faithfull performances. Most of the times the songs and instrumental sections are played "note to note" like the originals. The differences mostly come from Intros that are hard to link to a given song On a few tracks), but then gradually come back to the originals. Also, on some guitar parts, Hackett takes slight liberties and, obviously, the vocals (from a good number of guests) are different (in voice but not so much in style) but everyone gives an excellent performance.
After a few more spins of the CD I must admit that the album grew on me. The tracks do sound great, keeping a vintage flavour but with better instruments and recording. Also the group of songs on GR II is really good. If I had picked the songs I wanted to hear, not "revisiting" tracks from the first Genesis Revisited, I would have come pretty darn close to what we actually get (Entangled, Ripples, Supper's Ready, Fly on the Windshield...).
All in all, because of the wise selection of songs and the great performances, I can recommend this album to fans of Hackett and early seventies Genesis. Hopefully this CD, that is selling pretty well, will give some people the urge of checking out what Steve Hackett has been doing recently. The tour that will follow next spring, supporting this album, should be an interesting one.