Album Review: 14 Double GTR

Album Review: 14

Double GTR

This review was originally posted on rateyourmusic. It was one of the reviews I was assigned in the "Go Review That Album" game on their community forums. This version of the review has had some editing and corrections.

GTR GTR

1986 Arista Records ARCD 8400

***.5

“Watching the actor, that takes the stage by storm
Stealing the limelight, while we’re in the wings
Sometimes the hero, must play the underdog”

First off GTR is the abbreviation of guitar that is used by the music industry for track labeling in multi-track recording studios. GTR was a mid-1980s supergroup during the time when making dream lineups was a cool thing to do. Fronted by guitarists Steve Howe (Yes and Asia) and Steve Hackett (Genesis) GTR was formed initially as a special project to attempt a full band sound using only guitars w/out keyboard synthesizers. Synthesizing the guitars worked well enough in the studio for the recording but didn’t work so well for touring so the band had a keyboardist for their concerts. The band was only around for 2 years before going their separate ways. I always thought it was just a one-shot project to begin with. It wasn’t until I did a little internet research that I learned they had actually gone on tour with the group.

The opening track which was the first of two singles from the album “When The Heart Rules The Mind” along with a couple of the other songs sounds more like a Styx or Kansas type song than a Yes or Genesis song. It still gets some airplay now and then on AOR (Album Oriented Rock) stations. I admit there were sometimes a few years back when I heard the song and thought it was Styx. In the past I had only listened to this album three maybe four times. No wonder “When the Heart Rules the Mind” was the only song I remembered. The second track “The Hunter” was also released as a single I didn’t know that I thought the album only had the one single.

The instrumental songs “Sketches in the Sun” a guitar solo by Howe and “Hackett To Bits” by Hackett both sound more Yes-like than most of the rest of the album. You could probably mix it together with some songs from Yes Songs and claim it was some previously unreleased material from those sessions. Another song that has that Yes sound is “Jekyll And Hyde” which is a fun song. My final song of note on this album is “Toe the Line”. I feel that song would be a nice soft ballad type song to end the main set of a concert with, the final song where the band leaves the stage before coming back for its encore.