WISE AFTER THE EVENT

WATE has grown on me over the years. Try and try as I might, it never finds itself on HEAVY rotation on my CD player. But again, try and try- as I had - I cannot put this disc down for very long either. I just keep coming back to it. This album, and the follow-up SIDES were PHILLIPS' best honest-to-goodness attempts at making his presence felt in the dingy, wood-panelled-basement-world of 1970's proggers. It had the potential, primarily because it had the band to back it up (He assembles a terrific line-up here) - but it fell short of that aspiration for one primary reason. And that reason is ANTHONY PHILLIPS himself. He was THE integral musical member in the formative years of Genesis. But what he had that made Genesis so incredible was his subtlety, his sensitivity, his ability to inject the absolute perfect dose of beauty. That's his gift that very few in the music business share. As a result, while this album is wonderful, Ant is reaching outside his comfort zone. The result is good, but not as good if Ant was contributing his skills to another bands collaboration, or doing one of his own Phillips-esque masterpieces e.g. The Geese and the Ghost, Slow Dance, etc. No, his music is not destined for the wood-panelled basements of suburbia. It is more suited for celestial palaces. A good effort for a man called to much higher things.