WISE AFTER THE EVENT

Wise After The Event is Anthony "Ant" Phillips' second solo album. In many ways it is more Genesis-like than his solo debut The Geese And The Ghost from the previous year. While most of Ant's solo albums (and there are a few!) are instrumental, or mostly instrumental, and usually focuses on only a single instrument at a time (normally acoustic guitar, but sometimes piano or synthesiser), Wise After The Event leans heavily on vocals and even features some drums, bass, electric guitars, and keyboards. As such, this album is very unrepresentative of Ant's solo career as it is more of a band album than almost anything else he has done as a solo artist. Another exception though is his next album, 1979's Sides, which has even more of a Rock edge (at least on the second half of that album). I wish he has done more in this rocker vein instead of dabbling in Classical and electronic/ambient music.

As many other reviewers have pointed out, Phillips is not a great vocalist. But I find the vocals acceptable. We have here some Beatles-esque, quirky Pop Rock with some Symphonic leanings. I hear some of Caravan's whimsy and a bit of Van Der Graaf Generator in the sometimes (intentionally?) off-key vocals. There are no stand out tracks, but I think that Wise After The Event is Ant's most complete and coherent album.

This is not a great album, but it is a charming little album that makes a good addition in conjunction with The Geese And The Ghost and (the second side of) Sides.

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