TWO SIDES OF PETER BANKS

I found this vinyl this weekend in a local record shop; they either didn't know what they had or didn't care since it was in the cheap bin. I've been looking for this for a while, one of those ones you log in the back of your mind and are thrilled to one day come by. Not a full or perfect record, but it's such a, well, cool record. This album rocks. Tony Banks plays wonderfully - if some might say challenged or overshadowed at times by Akkerman -, from delicate to muscular on both the jazz and rock fronts, and the other musicians in the studio all do yeoman's work. Side two is very free in feel, completing the record with a pretty all-guitars duet followed by two spontaneous jams full of great playing. Side one is the thing here. It's a well oiled composition, but with a performance hastily thrown together; but that hastiness is the source of a lot of the excitement and charm in this record. (Note well, the Hackett and Whetton contributions are small indeed, but this won't matter as the music takes you.) And have I added that it rocks? I'm split on whether to give it 3 or 4 stars. I really enjoyed this one though - put it at 4-minus out of respect for all the great full-4's out there.