Steve Adams - Maiden Voyage

Steve Adams is a guitarist extraordinaire who has played in many bands during his long career and has worked with many artistes as a session musician.  His name will be most familiar to prog fans for his involvement in the Camel/Caravan amalgamation band Mirage, followed by Mirage II with the sadly departed ex-Camel maestro, Peter Bardens.

Steve's collaboration with Pete Bardens, together with his particular love of the music of Camel, has inevitably been an influence and inspiration to him, and this shines through on the first track on this, his first solo album first released in 1997.

The title track, Maiden Voyage, is nothing short of a masterpiece in every respect.  The strong hint of Camel's First Light from Raindances provides the essence of the recurring melody's main theme with oodles of changes and amazing guitar work in-between.  A glance at the CD sleeve to see who is accompanying Steve on bass, drums and keys indicates that Steve is actually responsible for it all.

Fellow Pete Bardens' Mirage cohort, Desha Dunnahoe makes an appearance on keyboards and backing vocals on three of the tracks as does Andy Varble on backing vocals.  Interestingly, Steve's vocals sound very much like those of Andy Latimer more often than not.

Whilst the first two tracks have a Camel influence, others have a variety of styles including Bardens, Kit Watkins and even David Gilmour and a touch of Steve Hillage.  As Steve has stated, Maiden Voyage is not a concept album so each track is self contained with its own style which makes it difficult if not impossible to offer a succinct generalisation of the album as a whole.  Animated, for example, is completely different to anything else on here, adopting programmed effects and drums and a free-flow jazz style rock guitar solo.  Opa's Garden, whilst having a African tribal beat, is a gentle acoustic guitar piece not far removed from something that Hackett might do.

There is something for most prog and music fans in general on Maiden Voyage and should the CD find its way into your collection, you'll find yourself giving it a spin time and time again.  Recommended.

Jem Jedrzejewski

Steve Adams

3 Ears/CDCafe

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