GTR (1986)

GTR doesn't refer here to an overpriced Japanese supercar but to an overhyped British supergroup.  It was the band founded in the mid-eighties by two prog guitarists named Steve - Howe from Yes and Asia and Hackett from Genesis - and named for the abbreviation for "guitar" used by recording studios to designate guitar tracks.  In other words, the band's name is the word "guitar" with the vowels taken out.  But after listening to GTR's self-titled debut album, one finds that other elements have been taken out of the music - namely the heart . . . the soul . . . and the brain.  Not to mention a reason for such a band's existence.  

The idea of Steve Howe and Steve Hackett, two of the most distinctive guitarists in British rock, forming a new band may have sounded like a dream come true to some classic-rock fans, but those who had heard the debut record of the Firm, the supergroup founded by Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers that had premiered a year earlier, likely knew better.  GTR's music is typical eighties arena rock with overblown synthesizers, snare drums mixed high, and bloated heavy electric guitar riffs that erupt from underneath everything else.  For a band named after a guitar sound and headed by Howe and Hackett, there's precious little six-string work to be celebrated or even noticed.  Even the biggest detractors of Yes and Genesis could find guitar riffs from these two men to applaud, such as Howe's pensive classical solos in Yes's "Roundabout" or Hackett's gritty fills in the title track of Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.  Here, Howe and Hackett don't even appear to be trying to produce anything that good.  It doesn't help that producer Geoff Downes - Howe's old partner in Asia - is a keyboardist.  

The songs are the typical eighties anthems about the triumph of the will, the yearning for human connections, and navel-gazing introspection, with lyrics with enough clichés to make Jon Bon Jovi blush.  Titles like "The Hunter" (a Geoff Downes composition), "You Can Still Get Through," and "Reach Out (Never Say No)" are (brain-)dead giveaways of what to expect, and the album's moderate hit single, "When the Heart Rules the Mind," shows no evidence of either one being the wiser.  In fact, the title of this album's fifth track has inspired me to add a thirty-fourth rule of rock and roll to Jimmy Guterman's and Owen O'Donnell's list of 33⅓ rules: Do not write a song with the title "Jekyll and Hyde."

Also, there are theatrical histrionics from lead singer Max Bacon, who sounds like he's auditioning to replace Joey Tempest as the frontman for Europe.  At least Bacon gives the songs the bombast they deserve, as do bassist Phil Spalding and drummer Jonathan Mover, who act as a rhythm section without the rhythm part.  They and Bacon are mostly there to disappoint the listener at key moments, for as soon as a Howe or Hackett guitar intro piques your interest, they come in and ruin everything.  

GTR may not have been complete "SHT," as rock critic J.D. Considine infamously wrote back in 1986, but their debut album is still a piece of JNK.  Unlike the similarly named Nissan sports car, it doesn't offer pleasure to compensate for impracticality, and it doesn't provide value for the money.  So why did this band exist, anyway?  Neither Howe not Hackett could answer that question, which is why GTR quickly ran out of gas; they broke up after this one album.    

(This is my last Sunday record review for awhile; I need another break.)