GENESIS REVISITED

I consciously avoided this album for several years. I really didn´t fancy anyone, not even mr. Hackett, doing an album of revised Genesis songs. Or any classic stuff for the matter, prog or otherwise. But I also knew that sooner or later I´d have to listen his ´version´ of the stuff he played on so long ago with the band that made him famous. And it wasn´t so bad as I initially thought it would be. In fact, some of the tunes did turn out rather wonderfully. Not the whole CD, of course. After all it is HIS vision, and we may not always agree about the selected material, nor the way he delivered them. But again I should say it was quite better than I expected.

He did show a lot of respect for the tunes and asked several terrifc musicians and singers to help him out. Incredibly, the best ones are two veru well known classic songs: Watcher of The Skies and The Fountain Of Salmacis. Both actually excells the originals in several aspects, believe it or not. The idea of using real orchestra instead of the mellotron works very well here. I also loved the way John Wetton sings on the former. Those two tracks are the real highlights of this album. On others the new versions did not work that well, but are very good anyway (Firth Of Fifth, Los Endos). And some are more interesting than really good: Dance On A Volcano is ok, but those processed vocals ruin it all, while Your Own Special Way becomes a typical 80´s pop song with Paul Carrak singing. There is a very uncharacteristically experimental version of The Waiting Room (here titled The Waiting Room Only) that sounds like one of Frank Zappa´s.

I really have no saying about the two ´original´ songs included: the never released Deja Vu (intended for Selling England...) and Hackett´s own Valley Of The Kings. Both are nice, but a little out of place on this album concept. And I really didn´t like the new bluesy version of I Know What I like. This and The weird The Waiting Room Only are the sole bad tracks of the whole record in my opinion. For Absent Friends became almost unrecognizable, but the orchestral arrangement was great and the song turned into something really good in the end.

Conclusion: a very interesting record. Even in those moments where I did not appreciate the new arrangements, I found this album to be a valid statement and something really worth listening to for any Genesis fan. Steve Hackett did a respectful and captivating work on some of his former band classics. He is surely one of the very few that could pick up such masterpieces and redo them without sounding like a poor copy or a parody. The cover was very inspired too.

If you like Gabriel era Genesis you should check this out.

Rating: 3.5 stars.