TIME AND TIME AGAIN

Mike Rutherford was the next in line after Tony Banks to make his solo debut while still in Genesis, one year before Phil Collins charted with 'On the Air Tonight' and with the album Face Value. Rutherford's album Smallcreep's Day was produced by the trusted Genesis producer David Hentschel and its performing line-up is excellent. The finest thing on it is perhaps the sidelong, 7-part title suite inspired by Peter Currell Brown's novel of the same name (1965) about a factory worker's journey of self-discovery. One could call the suite progressive pop.

The other side has separate songs that follow more closely the regular adult oriented pop form, and this single contains two of them. 'Time and Time Again' is my favourite track of Smallcreep's Day. The sensitive ballad has a beautiful, autumnal mood, and Noel McCalla's clean and tender voice fits the song perfectly. The single version is slightly edited.

The vinyl single's B-side was wrongly stated as 'At the End of the Day', the romantically mellow and cathartic final part of the album's title suite. But it's actually 'Overnight Job', which is a more upbeat pop song and also pretty finely crafted. Personally I'm not so fond of it though. (As for the rating, let's stick to three stars which I gave the album too, but 'Time and Time Again' is easily a four-star pop ballad for me.)