Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Fifty years ago the world awoke to the sound of what many describe as the greatest concept album of all time, at a stroke the ability to place an entire Progressive narrative down on a double album was presented in such a way that to this day The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway almost has a spell of mysticism surrounding it, an air of Progressive theology that has taken on its own place in time that few albums of its genre can match or emulate.

However, if there is one member of the Genesis extended family of musicians who could look back with confidence and forge the way of guitar sorcery to a place where the concept and perception of the tale rise to a height of unrelenting fearlessness, then it is Steve Hackett, arguably, undisputedly, the most productive of all the class line up, and one who along with Peter Gabriel perhaps understands the belief and theory of wealth of ideas conjoined that make their music shine brightly in the darkest of times.

The Circus and The Nightwhale will be seen as the guitarist’s vibe of relation to that Genesis creation, not in the way of storytelling, of musical ferocity, but in its adherence to the structure of definition, of pushing the boundary of all that went before out into the open and to perhaps be eclipsed within the beauty of enlightenment that art provides.

What comes through is the creation of art itself, it sits perhaps in the same pantheon of endeavours as Blake’s Song of Innocence and Experience, an epitome of the struggle and blessing of human existence entwinned an captured with passion of the enormous soul.

Across the album, Steve Hackett’s own experience gives the recording its own high praise and adulation, it punches a hole in the sky and allows the listener’s version of heaven and the heavenly access to their reality, to their being.

The blessing, the struggle, the concept of how we view life is framed as one would expect and dream; and as tracks within the narrative, within the sheer scope of Steve’s heroic Travla, take hold, such as These Passing Clouds, Enter The Ring, Circus Inferno, Ghost Moon and Living Love, and the album’s seismic employ of All At Sea, Into The Nightwhale, and Wherever You Are, so the music, the sense of being immersed within the whale itself like some redeemed Jonah understanding that the creature is rescuing you from the turmoil of the crested waves, is to be focused upon with a heartbeat that lasts for eternity.

With creative inclusion from musicians and friends such as Roger King, John Hackett on flute, the astonishing vocals of Amanda Lehmann, the superb Nad Sylvan, and Rob Townsend, The Circus and The Nightwhale is a remarkable, courageous, fierce reminder that the Progressive concept album is one education, edification, and illumination; and as such is a goliath in the genre.

Ian D. Hall