Firebird V11 (2008)

"They say you can never go back, but this new album teams Phil Manzanera with Charles Hayward, the drummer from his first school band in south London. A chance airport encounter led to this loosely structured and cheerfully experimental reunion, named after the raw-toned Gibson Firebird V11 guitar that Manzanera played in Roxy Music (you can see it on the cover of their album "For Your Pleasure", and indeed on this one, too). Besides Hayward, who founded the pioneering This Heat and remains a force on London's improvising scene, we have Israeli jazz-classical-rock bassist Yaron Stavi (a regular Gilad Atzmon collaborator) and the brilliant Polish pianist Leszek Mozdzer, whose keyboards add a dramatic dimension to the art-rock lineup. It's very much a guitar album, driven by Hayward's big beat, yet Manzanera shines best on the tunes written by his mates: Bill MacCormick's opening "Fortunately I Had One With Me", Mozdzer's "FIReEBIReD" and Hayward's "After Magritte"." (John L. Walters, The Guardian)