Squackett
A Life Within A Day

It always ends like this. There's a collaboration between two legendary authors, esteemed, appreciated, with long and wonderful careers behind them, and the first thing you look for in the album notes is whether one or the other has won. We're talking about a victory in sound, of course. Because it must be true that, between the two, one must inevitably dominate: balance is impossible, the principle of communicating vessels is not applicable, in short.

Here, the two sacred monsters that have to clash are none other than popò di imene than Chris Squire and Steve Hackett. Obviously, it's not up to me to introduce them. Either you know them, or you don't.

For many months there was talk of this collaboration, but what the hell of a name... Oh my, they already knew that Italy would be one of the strong points of their potential commercial expansion. So, how would the name "Squackett" have sounded, could they have asked themselves? Damn, it sounds like something related to a bout of diarrhea!

Let's think about the music. What can we expect from two die-hard progsters? Pop rock, of course. Yes, some traces of AOR, some dreamy atmospheres, a lot of bass and a lot of guitar. The essence, the secret, the mystery to be revealed that gripped before the release, leaves no room for hope: there's no progressive, there's no complex compositional level music, art spun out from the strings of the two, at most refined melodies and moments of good music.

True that when Hackett picks up the acoustic, even just for brief passages, intro or interludes, goosebumps tend to appear, but you can't exactly elevate an album to a masterpiece for a few brief moments. The singing is, again, divided between the two, although Hackett slightly predominates. Let's analyze a few tracks. The opener and title track "A Life Within A Day" is a powerful, hard pop with faint Arabian sounds. A decidedly Hackettian track with a really pleasant instrumental interlude, where the two show that, if they want, they can definitely do it. To mention "Aliens" among the positive things, a mid-slow, perhaps even danceable at a slow pace, which could also have been on some recent work of the ex-Genesis. Notable, perhaps the best track of the bunch "Stormchaser" with its pulsating bass, finally the Rickenbacker comes out, and then comes a citation (sudden and unexpected) of King Crimson's Lark’s Tongues! Also positive is the review for "Sea Of Smile," a fairly varied track with some really nice things. Not very convincing are other things like "Divided Self," a sort of AOR in the style of Boston or Styx, quite banal in its revolving around a too-heard arpeggio and covered with useless melodic attempts and quick-catchy refrains. An anonymous and inconsistent "The Summer Backwards," a Hackett track in full, but aside from a few choral moments, says very little. Lastly, I still mention "Can’t Stop The Rain," halfway between the lighter Mike Oldfield and the Bee Gees, slow, calm, and very catchy where Squire's spirit dominates, it only picks up a bit at the end with a decent guitar solo and a break leading to the last track.

What happens, summing up, is that you find yourself handling a product artistically far from Yes (definitely), far from Genesis (definitely), close to the recent solo works of Hackett, but with an eye winked toward more catchy and direct approach things, while still maintaining a direction of fun parody and wise self-irony. So who won? The verdict is final and there is no balance on the board, Squire Vs Hackett is exactly what was expected: Squackett!!                     

PaP - Sioulette