Normally, the release of an exhaustive box-set retrospective will either form a memorial, mark a significant anniversary or else signal that its subject has retired or run out of creative inspiration. Reaching Back, however, heralded none of these, and we can now celebrate Steve's triumphant return to the shiny-disc medium with the enigmatically-titled Ziggurat, his first new set of original songs since 2003's Such And Such.

Steve has candidly admitted that after writing Archipelago (shortly before the release of Reaching Back, on which its première recording appeared), there'd been a brief period of writer's block and self-doubt (at one point he even believed he'd written enough songs thankyou!), but (happily) Madame Muse paid a visit - and this "song about not being able to write a song" was ironically to prove the catalyst for further creativity.

These new songs still embrace Steve's trademark sense of history, but the difference is that this time (almost exclusively) it's the history of personal experience, albeit told with a distinctly universal perspective (as all the best songs are!), poignantly inviting listeners to draw parallels in their own lives. Even In-Between Years, for all that it focuses on some of his late father's own reminiscences, doesn't feel so private as to exclude the listener, while Archipelago may seem a simple love song but it has wider, both historical and geographical resonances. The Road When I Was Young, in a characteristically unassumingly first-hand manner, incidentally chronicles aspects of the early-70s acoustic music scene, while the abundantly happy 12-bar of Jacaranda leaps around in a manner that put me in mind of the sunny Grecian mode of The Dewy Ones.

There are some innately very beautiful songs here, whose immediate appeal is further enhanced by their truly lovely musical settings. Not only does Steve himself pick a mellifluous 12-string and some really tasty slide embellishments in addition to his customary highly expert six-string playing that always sounds so effortless, but there are also sympathetically understated contributions from a handful of musicians including Chris Parkinson (accordion, piano, organ), Dave Bowie (double bass) and Richard Curran (violin, viola), the latter transforming himself into a sublime mini-string-section for three key songs (I found After Summer Rain especially beguiling, but In-Between Years also has some gorgeous harmony voicing from Maggie Boyle).

The more caustic edges to Steve's world vision come with A Pretty Penny (and am I imagining it, or does its opening flourish also slyly back-reference Steve's famous ten-shilling note?) and, more savage still, The Spoils Of War, Steve's indictment of the sheer indifference of invading armies to their expedient wholesale destruction of a nation's cultural heritage (the iconic ziggurat being a prime example).

Finally, the disc also includes two typically well-considered arrangements of traditional songs, which might initially appear makeweights but can perhaps more accurately be regarded as the bridge leading from Steve's 2005 all-trad CD Of Many Hands into this Ziggurat. No: such is the unstinting quality of this fine new collection that Steve needn't resort to any dubious pyramid-selling techniques in order to shift copies! (David Kidman, July 2008)

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