SMALLCREEP'S DAY

For those Genesis nuts who love their Wind & Wuthering yet DON'T have a copy of Mike Rutherford's Smallcreep's Day, you really need to put this one on your list STAT! Just a stunningly melodic collection of tunes that the Genesis bassist/guitarist was clearly squirreling away for his own pet project.

In some respects, I can see how many of these tracks would not have worked under a Genesis umbrella - singer Noel McCalla's full throated vocals complement the songs here much more than Phil Collins' thinner, more reedy voice would have. (Not to slight Collins in the least, but I honesty can't hear him singing anything on Smallcreep's Day.)

Though it's Rutherford's name on the jacket (and all the songs are indeed his own), the show stealers are the two unrelated Phillips boys: a very playful Simon Phillips on drums (one of his finest performances ever, by the way) and Anthony Phillips leaving the stringed acoustics at home in favor of a surprise home run on keyboards. For sheer lushness, Phillips' string synth work here is completely off the grid! You'd think he was using three hands! The five or six times I've played this album for Genesis fans, each one pretty much said the same thing: Wow! Is that REALLY Anthony Phillips on keyboards? Quite the performance!

Actually better recorded than either Wuthering or There Were Three, Smallcreep's Day scores in a big big way. If you have a jones for some uber-high quality late '70s Genesis played by some of the original suspects, your search is over, Sherlock.

A most exuberant 4.5 stars from me.