ACTING VERY STRANGE

The album 'Acting Very Strange' is a fairly enjoyable one from Mike Rutherford. Generally, Genesis solo albums are not on the same level as the Genesis albums, with the exception of Peter Gabriel, though I still prefer Genesis to his solo output.

For the purposes of this site, it is probably worth to mention that this is not a 'prog' album, although the first two songs have a slight prop-pop leaning.

However, the big change from his first solo album to this album is the quality of production. On 'Smallcreeps Day', the singer for that album, Noel McCalla, is unfortunately buried in the production, under layers of synths, bass, guitars and other noise. That's a shame because Noel is a good singer, and it didn't do justice to him. He can be heard to good effect on backign vocal of 'Who's fooling who'

On this album, Mike Rutherford's voice is loud and clear, sitting perfectly in the foreground. Yes,his voice is harsh, raspy and a bit ugly, but in my opinion he is the best Genesis singer after Gabriel and Collins. One thing he doesn't do is mumble, and he knows how to inject 'personality' into his singing. He knows how to deliver the songs. His voice is just a bit raspy, but when you're singing about being hard done by, well that's kind of a plus, isn't it?

The songs themselves are not prog, they are catchy, enjoyable pieces of new wave and a bit of reggae and soul. He is still experimenting with guitar tones, especially on the eerie 'A day to remember', which is my favourite song here.

The single from the album is 'Maxine' but 'Acting very strange' would have been my choice, much catchier, much stronger. The only song I don't like is the bare audible 'Hideaway', a ballad at the end of the album. My rating is 3 1/2 or 3 3/4 so I'll round up to 4.