Star rating: **** As a guitarist, Allan Holdsworth's fingers understandably grab the attention. There's his left hand with its improbable reach and spidery command of the whole fretboard, and a right that can play hide the plectrum while picking with thumb and three digits. Just as fascinating, though, is Holdsworth's left eyebrow. This is what he uses, with a slight arching, to acknowledge his audience's stupefaction. It's not aloofness, more that the super-self-critical Holdsworth seems to be saying: "Well, you might have thought that was okay but I was hoping for something better."

Star rating: ****

As a guitarist, Allan Holdsworth's fingers understandably grab the attention. There's his left hand with its improbable reach and spidery command of the whole fretboard, and a right that can play hide the plectrum while picking with thumb and three digits. Just as fascinating, though, is Holdsworth's left eyebrow. This is what he uses, with a slight arching, to acknowledge his audience's stupefaction. It's not aloofness, more that the super-self-critical Holdsworth seems to be saying: "Well, you might have thought that was okay but I was hoping for something better."

Here's to what Holdsworth's ideal guitar solo must sound like then, because his playing routinely defies belief. There may have been times when, in certain company, his music has become hyper-intense, oppressive even, like a guitar Olympics. With the marvellous Chad Wackerman on drums and Ernest Tibbs on bass guitar here, though, the music breathed as well as rocking, swinging, searching and satisfying.

Holdsworth's ability to play at speed has made him the guitarist to emulate for many. But shape as much as velocity and the fact that every note is articulated with musical purpose or embellished with an emotive dink on his whammy bar are what make him so special. A significant part of his art, too, is his creative, hugely atmospheric chording, which turns the guitar, to all intents and purposes, into a keyboard. Wackerman and Tibbs bring their own mighty contributions, not least the drummer's genuinely involving conversation between feet and hands, courtesy of double bass drum pedal and sticks, but the lasting impression was of three superb individuals playing as a band of often considerably greater number.