STEVE HOWE
The evergreen Yes guitarist uncouples from the mothership to drift through ever-shifting landscapes, both internal and external, on his first solo album in nine years.
Words: Chris Roberts Illustration: Charlie Roy
Edited by Dave Everley prog.reviews@futurenet.com
New spins…
Love Is A River, the keynote track on Steve Howe’s first solo album since 2011’s Time, never quite does what you expect it to from one moment to the next. There are lovely hooks and melodies and refrains in there, but the structure of this six-minute song resists, at all points, doing what any songwriting craftsman’s textbook would. Let that charming guitar line settle in? No, move on. Repeat that kind of chorus section? Don’t be daft; maybe later. Do four of these motifs? Nah, how about three, or one?