A CURIOUS FEELING

Usually regarded as the best solo album Tony BANKS released, the album simply consisted of him, Kim Beacon (ex-STRING DRIVEN THING - a band that also recorded for Charisma, just like GENESIS) on vocals, and Chester Thompson (who played on Frank ZAPPA's "One Size Fits All" and WEATHER REPORT's "Black Market", and also toured with GENESIS and Phil COLLINS). Now this is an album I'd appreciate a hellova lot better if it was all instrumental. This guy, Kim Beacon has one of the most bland and unappealing voice ever (he reminds me too much of SPOCK'S BEARD's Neal MORSE - SPOCK'S BEARD being another band I'd like better if they had someone other than MORSE singing - but now MORSE isn't with that band anymore).

No doubt the instrumental pieces are the best, but Beacon's voice gives it too much of a pop feel. But then I shouldn't be surprise, GENESIS was starting to head the pop route by this time anyway, so this album seemed to be a compromise between GENESIS prog past and pop future. In fact, a lot of the album, unsurprisingly, reminds me of "Duke", thanks to the presence of the Yamaha CP-70 electric grand piano. I think it would this album would work a lot better if BANKS either made this an all-instrumental offering, or had someone else than Beacon sing (like Phil COLLINS).