This is Steve Howe’s first fully acoustic studio album. That presents a little bit of an issue in terms of the full listening experience. It makes it more of a subtle release in a lot of ways. It’s more the kind of thing that can drop into the background. It also lacks a lot of the peaks and valleys that help to differentiate pieces of music. For my money, that makes this one of his less successful solo albums. That said, it’s still pretty darned good. And you can never beat Howe in terms of guitar prowess. The guy really is the master of his instrument.

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There is a bit of a jazzy vibe to this mellow and quite pretty piece of music. It covers quite a bit of territory before eventually dropping down to a particularly sedate movement that eventually takes it to its closing.

Trademark Steve Howe, this merges his type of intricate folk guitar sounds with some blues elements. It’s a cool little jam that has some particularly complex instrumental work.

Somehow this one feels a little playful. It has more of that folk element on display, but some of the slide guitar and other sounds lend some bluegrass into the mix.

This acoustic guitar solo is quite sedate and pretty.

Intricate and compelling, this is another cool acoustic guitar solo. It rocks a bit more than the previous tune did. Some strings add a different level of sound and emotion to the piece.

Fairly complex acoustic guitar lines create a piece that seems to merge classical music and jazz.

Another gentle and sedate number, this is pretty. It’s got plenty of classical music in the mix.

I love this. It’s a complex and compelling instrumental that is trademark Steve Howe. While it’s not all that different from a lot of the stuff here, it somehow just works better than the rest. Considering that nothing here is weak, that says a lot.

This acoustic guitar solo is quite involved. It definitely has a lot of basis in classical music.

Some of the guitar melodies here make me think of spaghetti westerns. That said, this is very much a classically tinged intricate piece of music.

There is almost a music box kind of feeling to some of this. Otherwise, though, it’s another that has a lot of classical music and some seriously intricate melody lines built into it.

Folk music and mellow progressive rock merge with classical on this piece.

I really like this instrumental rendition of a section of the Yes song “I’ve Seen All Good People.”

Another Yes section, this one from “Starship Trooper,” this takes on a cool folk meets country music aspect in this telling. It’s a lot of fun.