GENESIS REVISITED

This album is just what its title implies, Steve Hackett revisiting some old Genesis classics. With the help of an all star cast featuring John Wetton, Ian McDonald, Bill Bruford, Tony Levin, Chester Thompson, Julian Colbeck, Colin Blunstone and many others, Steve tries to recreate the old Genesis magic once more. All of Steve's friends from Genesis are notably absent. The results are often interesting but somewhat mixed. Steve would later take Wetton, McDonald, Thompson and Colbeck with him on tour with far better results as evidenced on the amazing live DVD The Tokyo Tapes where some of the very best moments from this album are performed live together with some of Steve's best solo work and a couple of King Crimson classics thrown in (due to McDonald's presence) as well as an acoustic version of Asia's Heat Of The Moment (due to Wetton's presence).

Just like on that The Tokyo Tapes performance, Genesis Revisited opens with Watcher Of The Skies, originally from Genesis' Foxtrot album. Originally sung by Peter Gabriel, both the Tokyo Tapes version and the Genesis Revisited version were excellently sung by John Wetton whose voice fits this song perfectly. The same thing applies to Firth Of Fifth which is another highlight here. Steve certainly did interesting things with these Genesis classics. Firth Of Fifth, for example, has been given a radically different middle section compared to the original version. I Know What I Like is performed in a Jazz style and includes a kind of Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells parody with spoken introduction of the different instruments! A bit silly, if you ask me!

Other highlights are those tracks sung by Steve himself, like the highly interesting version of Dance On A Volcano from my favourite Genesis album A Trick Of The Tale and Fountain Of Salmacis. Steve sings these somewhat in the style of Darktown to great effect. But like the Darktown album, Genesis Revisited is uneven and inconsistent, even disjointed due the presence of so many different singers.

The song Déjà vu (which is not a Genesis song) is almost an embarrassment for the album and is completely out of place despite a nice guitar solo, and the versions of For Absent Friends and Your Own Special Way are quite awful to my ears and add nothing to the originals. These songs, together with the weird Waiting Room Only, are the album's weakest links. The best songs are Watcher Of The Skies, Dancing On A Volcano, Firth Of Fifth and the eternal Los Endos which is given a fantastic reworking. Also the new (and not Genesis related) instrumental Valley Of The Kings is great and features fantastic electric guitar work from Steve. This instrumental is, however, available on the live DVD Once Above A Time which is another amazing video release from Steve. Indeed, with very few exceptions all of the best moments from this album are featured on different live recordings, most notably The Tokyo Tapes DVD but also the Once Above A Time DVD and the Somewhere In South America DVD which are the recommended sources for Steve Hackett performing Genesis.

If you don't have these amazing live DVDs and all the original Genesis albums from which these songs originally came, get these releases immediately they are all highly recommended! If you do have these DVDs and CDs, you don't really need Genesis Revisited unless you are a serious Genesis and/or Steve Hackett fan and collector. Hence my rating of two stars.

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