...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...

Until they released Duke, I was always behind on the album releases and I never heard them in order. W&W was the first album I ever heard in 1978 and I was instantly amazed and prog rock became my staple and Genesis was The Band. I went back and heard the catalog and that love grew. Apocalypse in 9/8 was epic since I am an instrumentalist at heart. Collins said that after Gabriel's departure he suggested the band become an instrumental unit and I would have been fine with that.

My favorite period will always be the Hackett years. He is a very unique guitarist and his work was essential to the band. It was sad when his contributions were not better received. Songs from Please Don't Touch were offered up which Genesis would have been great at but ended up released in sync with ATTWT. It stinks that one reason he left was that Mike and Tony would not let him do solo albums in between Genesis albums. So what did those hypocrites do? As soon as ATTWT was released Phil had marriage issues so Mike and Tony did solo albums.

Steve did not want tio do shorter songs as he wanted to stick with the prog flavor. I admire him greatly and his solo output has surpassed every other member of the band. I tend to wonder if those 2 especially Banks wanted to just get rid of Steve. He has never ever gotten the respect he should have had. Tony did not like having to share the spotlight with any other soloist. Had Steve stayed the next Genesis offering would have been different and probably would have further refined the 4 piece.

By the time I heard ATTWT, I had been ready for the next awesome entry of rich prog and lengthy instrumentals. But to no avail. I feel it was a mistake for Genesis not to hire a new lead guitarist to replace Hackett (Daryl Stuermer would have been great). I have long admired Mike's talent on bass and have considered him one of the all time best and he is great of a 12 string as rhythm but as a lead he is sorely lacking. It is as if they decided they really only needed a rhythm guitar and so Tony got his wish to dominate the band even mor3e than he did.

All that being said I was disappointed in this album but like all Genesis fans I looked for the gems and there are some for sure. The opening Down & Out is explosive and thick and that started the first song they did where the bass line pounded out 1 note. Abacab and Behind The Lines later followed this line on bass pedals. D&O was a great way to start the album. I did like most of the songs in some way. Snowblind I thought was intense and unique.

Side 2 started with Motherlode which reminded me of In A Mouse's Night to a degree instrumentally. The best prog track on the album for me was Burning Rope. I was surprised by Mike's solo that it was fairly decent and when Banks keys come crashi8ng in at the end it is a bit of a hair raiser.

When Follow You comes on, it is reminiscent of the end of W&W Afterglow. I knew then that we could be seeing the band start eyeing a pop transition but like so many, I had hope it would never happen.

While I was disappointed in the album, I think part of it had to do with Steve being gone and his departure shows in the music. But overall it was a decent entry for them dropping to 3 members. Sadly this album is the beginning of the end of Genesis for me.