FIELD DAY

It's fascinating to see other reviewer's opinions on this album. You would expect, from all the gushing praise, that this must be some sort of bypassed 'Selling England By the Pound' or other offering of that ilk.

It's not however. I'm a massive Genesis fan, and similarly a fan of all those accomplished players that have ever been associated with the band. In that vein - Ant's first album, 'The Geese and the Ghost' is indeed a brilliant, if overlooked album.

Field Day is not like that. In fact it's quite different - this is an album of guitars. One hell of a lot of guitars actually. But just guitar, the whole guitar, and nothing but the guitar. It's a double CD, and when you consider how much you can cram into a CD that's a lot of music to digest, and a lot of guitar. You get the picture....

It is a beautiful soundscape of acoustic guitar, and probably my favourite acoustic guitar album (to date). There's loads of variety in the guitars that are used and the tracks are all clearly labelled as to what instrument they were recorded with. Similar instruments are grouped well too so you can get a handful of tracks that have a similar sound before changing to a new instrument. The sound reproduction is amazing, and even on the humblest of hi-fi systems it will sound like Antony Phillips is sitting in the room with you.

My only negative point, as you may have gathered, is that there's a massive serving of 'guitar' to get through, and all of it is acoustic in some form or other so the album can feel a little colourless if you try to swallow it whole. Best to not overdose on it and so serve yourself with bite size chunks to keep it feeling fresh.

When I consider a rating I like to think about the experience as a whole package, and due to the sheer size of this album it makes it a little hard to accept as an essential masterpiece - it's unlikely most people would have this in their desert island disc case along with 'the greats'. Therefore it's an easy 4 stars from me.

Right, now for the track by track reviews on the 54 tracks individually.........!