PLANET EARTH?

Well, I know The Watch (and Night Watch) but Inever bother to write a review, not even for the so called ´classic´ Vaccum (which, by the way, I bought after reading the glowing reviews when I joined PA). It´s not that I don´t like them or similar minded outfits.The main problem with all the bands that try to emulate (or simply cloning) Gabriel era Genesis is the fact that they are all good to reproduce that group´s timbres, arrangements, voices and even manneirisms, but rarely their real soul that is their stunning songwriting skill. Worse, they tend to concentrade their interpretation on the more dense, obscure and complex side of Genesis (like most parts of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway) instead of their great melodic and creative approach of their best known numbers (Citizen Cane is a good exemple of how unfathomable and plain complex they can get by this route).

The Watch does not exactly fall in that trap. Their use of acoustic guitars, Banks sounding keyboards and Hackett-like electric guitar solos are very well done and reminds me of Genesis best in many ways. Unfortunatly they did not come up with a convincing bunch of songs to match their good intentions. Planet Earth? However shows an obvious improvemnt over their previous effords. Not only the production here is much superior to all they´ve had before but the first two tracks are probably the best I ever heard written by this italian outfit. It was almost like facing what would be if Peter Gabriel stayed on around the time of A Trick Of The Tail. The remaining songs are not so good and listenging to them soon made my initial enthusiasm fade. Each one a little weaker than the previous. Not bad, really, but a little let down after the electrifying start.

Obviously all the musicians involved are very skillful and all. Simone Rossetti sounds A LOT like Peter Gabriel. And I guess they are on the way to write better and more convincing tunes in near future. At least this is what I hope. They had developed and deserve consideration. So a 3 star rating seems just about right. Good, sometimes very good, but (still) non-essential.