Steve Hackett – Beyond the Shrouded Horizon

Beyond the Shrouded Horizon was released in 2011 on Inside Out music. It’s Steve Hackett’s twenty-first album.

I love all of the ways this record is its own thing, and yet harkens back to Hackett’s history. It’s very “boomer,” sometimes astoundingly old-fashioned but somehow beautiful even in its most cornball moments.

“Waking to Life” has a harmonic minor motif that’s very nice. I love that he has Eastern European connections in this music.

There are other essays into varied musical styles – The bluesy rock of Prairie Angel and Catwalk, the dense harmonies of Looking for Fantasy – but the central feeling here is mystical, in the same way that blue-hour motif reflected in both the title and the cover photo is.

One reason this CD appeals is that Karen, my wife, also likes it. She asks me what I’m playing when I put it on, which she doesn’t do for a lot of the music I’m listening to these days. I think she would like Renaissance, which I’m about to start a deep dive into, although she’s aware of Annie Haslam. I think Annie is folk-adjacent enough to appear on her radar.

I love folk too, but I have really felt pulled towards prog and high-energy rock music for the last little while. I think that may have to do with the state of the world. I think i’m hungry for warrior energy, and metal and prog seem to have that energy more than most music.

I do understand “warrrior” energy as “boy music” which I resist on a personal level. I wrestle with that idea a bit, since I prefer to signify on the female side generally, but I feel like this is a time when fighting is the most necessary thing for a world citizen to be ready for.

But a warrior has to be fighting for something, and beauty seems like one of the best things one can fight for. Beyond the shrouded horizon, there may be more beauty to come. I hope there is. But we have to get there.

In the meantime, find beauty where you can.

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