PIONEERING Prog Rockers Nektar have gathered together over a dozen classics of Rock radio and reinterpreted them in their own image, helped by a veritable Who’s Who of Rock illuminate.

The core members of the band: guitarist / vocalist Roye Albrighton, drummer Ron Howden and keyboard player Klaus Henatsch, teamed up with Billy Sherwood to create a superb album of covers.

Albrighton seems to be turning into an actual Rock ‘guitar hero’ as his playing of the instrument encompasses all the trademarks of such a musician.

The solo on Spirit of the Radio (sorry lads, that really should be The Spirit of Radio) has been taken out of the Steve Howe Book of Guitar solos – oh, and speaking of Mr Howe; he turns up playing guitar on the Stevie Winwood track Can’t Find My Way Home.

And yes, Spirit of the Radio is a cover of the Rush track, having followed Sirius, which was originally performed by The Alan Parsons Project.

Now, what else have we here?

Steve Miller’s Fly Like an Eagle (with Yes’ Geoff Downes on keyboards), which is followed by an excellent version of Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (with Tangerine Dream’s Edgar Froese guesting).

The Doors’ Riders On the Storm has Rod Argent on keyboards, and Toto’s Africa has Patrick Moraz.

Ginger Baker lays down some drums for Springsteen’s Blinded by the Light, which is almost a direct copy of the Manfred Mann’s Earthband version – but that doesn’t mean to say it isn’t good.

In Downes, Moraz and Sherwood, the album has three of the keyboard played from Yes, and guess what? A fourth turns up on the cover of 10CC’s I’m Not in Love; this time a certain Mr Richard Christopher Wakeman.

This album should not work. People say the Prog Rock has had its’ day and that artists like these should go back to the Stone Age where they belong.

But it does work, and the reason being that they are different versions of songs we have heard so many times before, the original is burned into our very beings.

After listening to this superbly crafted collection, not only will you love these new interpretations, you’ll go back and marvel again at the originals.

Cleopatra Records.
CLP 8932-2