Biggest comeback?

Allow me, Thyme Traveler, to riff on your Genesis thread.  What are the best real-world examples of a band releasing alot of dreck (and/ or taking alot of time off) and then coming back out of the blue with something unbelieveably strong or even of classic proportions?  Perhaps The Moodies coming back with Long Distance Voyager after many years off and "so-so" Octave.  I'm sure there has to be more (King Crimson fans might want to weigh in). 

BaldFriede wrote: stonebeard wrote: Though I've not heard it, Present has to be one of the biggest prog comebacks of all time. It is, but in a different way. VdGG did not produce a lot of dreck, they just didn't produce anything for 28 years.

They did, indeed! Check out the line-up of solo Peter Hammil recordings from 1978 onwards! (of course there are heck a lot of truly solo projects) Hammill leaned on his former VdGG mates most of the time, and though I didn't hear anything of him after 1983's Patience -with the exception of Skin and Spur of the Moment, which is a collaboration with an ex-vdgg Guy Evans- , I'm sure there's a lot of "dreck" coming from the same members (on and off, including a very early Generator member Potter) , especially between '80 and late nineties...

As for Present, it is not a heck of a VdGG album, especially when you try to comepare it to Pawn Hearts or Still Life (which would be a mistake by the way...), but it's a very worthy effort considering the downfall of prog in the last two decades... Not a lot of truly great recent albums by the dinasours, as for my opinion only a couple of Wakey records (Return and Out There, to be specific) can match up with it... And I'm not sure wheteher Wakey himself would be able to produce such stunning records, after listening to Songs from the Middle Earth!

AS for other comebacks, I can think of Yes' stunning returns (three times!) after the dreadful union and Big Generator albums (chronology reversed in favor of dreadfullness!) Keys to Ascension (s), even the former Talk, The Ladder and Magnificaton are indeed great albums matching up with their '70's classics...

no other fine reunions I can think of... 

stonebeard wrote: TOD KREMER wrote: Stonebeard, are you saying that Tull should just keep trying until they get it "right" again?  There probably is another classic in them (I'm not so sure that it would be with current line-up though). Yes. Why should all the classics be composed by brilliant artist in their youth? I think all the prog greats are just as capable of turning out classics albums now as ever. They just can't try to to the same thing over. Recognize your style of music, play inside it, but add new influences and experiences that you learned along the way. Robert Plant has done this his entire solo career.

i agree with u about plant. his solo stuff is great.

1. King Crimson in the '90's
2. Gong in the '00's
3. Van der Graaf Generator in the '00's

Going for the One / 90125

A Trick of the Tail

Godbluff

Crest of a Knave

ok, these don't fit the question, but to me they were incredibly important comeback albums for each band.

Uriah Heep.

Sea of Light was a relief when released in 1995.Their best effort since 1981's Abominog.

1998's Sonic Origami confirmed that the band was back on track but unfortunately nothing new came since then.