SEVEN - A SUITE FOR ORCHESTRA

Blazing saddles

Let's be clear from the start here, this is Tony Banks in the role of composer. Apart from the odd appearance on the piano, he leaves the entire performance to the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The album is on the budget classical label "Naxos", and consists of (unsurprisingly) seven orchestral pieces. In this form, it's certainly not prog by any stretch of the imagination, although had he chosen to perform it using a modern day rock combo, it would of course have sounded very different, and probably quite progressive. The opening track "Spring tide" does at times have more than a passing resemblance to some of the music on "A curious feeling".

The pieces are generally what might be considered to be at the lighter end of the classical music spectrum, the type which feature on "best of the classics" collections. I'm not an expert by any means on that sort of music, but I suspect a "serious" classical music buff would find the compositions to be "pop" orientated. At times "Seven" sounds a bit too much like a film score, once or twice I had visions of John Wayne leading the cavalry riding over the hill to save the day at the last minute.

In all, an enjoyable and interesting diversion for both Banks and his audience. I have to say though, had this album not borne his name, I would have left it on the shelf along with the many other classical albums which sound oh so similar to this one.

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Posted Wednesday, April 28, 2004 | Review this album | Report (Review #29896)

OK this is classical music but then again Genesis wrote classic music. In any event Genesis will be deemed classical in about 100 years from now! How many artist nowadays have the guts to go totally classical after so many years of rock music? Not many....' Seven' is a wonderful work of music. Bearing in mind Bank's now in his early 50's felt the timing was right to face this challenge. He did it in style and the album gets better and better with repeated listening. And also you can unmistakenly hear the Genesis sound there too. Spring Tide and Earthlight recommended.

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Posted Friday, July 9, 2004 | Review this album | Report (Review #29899)

Well this time Mr Banks - former soul of "early Genesis" with Peter Gabriel, is involved with an ambitious project, concerning a symphonic album in a "classical music" format, but which is closer to a certain type of New Age (I think of Vangelis) than any true album of classical music. The songs are quite evocative and performed with an emotional feeling, but his typical chords and music patterns are often replaced by a simple structure.some harmonic passages, a little bit more difficult, are performed by the London Symphonic Orchestra; instead the melodic piano by Banks is not equal to his best piano pieces (I think of "Firth of Fifth" within "Selling England by the Pound" - or also the music intro of "The Lamb Lies down on Broadway").Otherwise He has been in the habit to play simple parts - often using a simple sequencer - in the recent disappointing albums by late Genesis, so I'm not surprised about that!!

A good album, not bad at all, but perhaps a little bit anachronistic.make your own choice as usual!!

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Posted Wednesday, June 28, 2006 | Review this album | Report (Review #82176)

Give us back Pop-Tony any day!

This is Classical music, pure and simple. There is not a hint of Prog here, or any type of Rock for that matter (nor Pop). Needless to say, this has nothing to do with Genesis or the rest of Tony Banks' solo discography. Tony performs here only on Classical piano, but the major musical space is given to the symphonic orchestra.

Tony Banks solo output is overall rather weak, but even his worst Pop albums are preferable over this, in my opinion. I promise that I will give this album another chance someday, but for now I just find it dull and I find myself unable to give it the appropriate attention needed to write a good or even fair review. I don't have enough knowledge and experience with this type of music in order to judge the relative quality of the present work. But I certainly cannot recommend it unless you want absolutely everything connected to Genesis and Tony Banks. This is rather one of those releases were you wonder if it really is the same Tony Banks?

No doubt about the rating here.

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Posted Monday, June 28, 2010 | Review this album | Report (Review #288514)

The first real forray into classical music, Tony Banks leaves a mixed but even more bored feeling after listing to the album. There are little traces of anything from rock or jazz music. The proper classification would be modern classical music with some hints of movie soundtrack as heard by bra ... (read more)

Report this review (#2271491) | Posted by sgtpepper | Sunday, October 20, 2019 | Review Permanlink

#28 Review Original Review was made on 12/3/2018 Decided to update it today 5/5/2021 while making a YT playlist with Tony's orchestral music, and in all this time my perspective on this album has changed. 1.- Spring Tide 9/10 (Update) This song has a demo on the "A Chord Too Far" compilation ... (read more)

Report this review (#2080762) | Posted by FalconBleck | Monday, December 3, 2018 | Review Permanlink

I really wanted to like this album. I was actually very pleased to hear Tony had done an orchestral album, as I imagined he would probably be really good at this. And I gave it quite a few good listens until I finally, sadly, decided this album just doesn't do it for me. There's very little here, ... (read more)

Report this review (#184105) | Posted by splyu | Monday, September 29, 2008 | Review Permanlink

Hmmm.....maybe I'm just an uncultured listener who can't appreciate music without a beat, but this album disappointed me. I was actually quite excited when I first heard about it, because Tony has always so obviously been influenced by classical music, and I thought maybe now we'll all get to f ... (read more)

Report this review (#158301) | Posted by bassandbeyond | Thursday, January 10, 2008 | Review Permanlink

I read a lot of negative critic here about this album. People say that this not progressive music, that Banks is not a good orchestrator and he should stick to piano, that if there not were Banks name on this record it would never end up here, that this sounds like fourth rate nineteenth centu ... (read more)

Report this review (#74849) | Posted by pirkka | Thursday, April 13, 2006 | Review Permanlink

As much as I love Banks' contributions to Genesis, this one simply does not work. Add his name to the growing list of pop/rock stars who want to make a step-out into the "classical" music field (Paul McCartney, Joe Jackson, Billy Joel) and end up sounding like fourth rate nineteenth century co ... (read more)

Report this review (#29902) | Posted by Dragon Phoenix | Monday, May 23, 2005 | Review Permanlink

This album is essentially disappointing. It's obvious that Banks is not an orchestrator and his ideas are maybe better implemented that on The Wicked Lady, but it is still definitely not a Masterwork. If only Bank would make a classical keyboard/piano album. Just listen to some of the instr ... (read more)

Report this review (#29901) | Posted by | Wednesday, March 30, 2005 | Review Permanlink

Being a professional of classical music, and an old-date Genesis fan at the same time, puts me in a difficult position in judging this work. Modern so-called "classical music" is in no way associated with what you can listen to in this issue. If I did not know it was by Mr. Banks I'd say it wa ... (read more)

Report this review (#29898) | Posted by | Monday, June 28, 2004 | Review Permanlink

Disaspointment. Because I was expecting more the kind of masterpiece like Steve Hackett's Midsummer night dream '' or Anthony Phillips majestuous Tarka. My expectations in '' Seven '' were so great that I've finally been disapointed and never listened the record to the end. The global envelo ... (read more)

Report this review (#29897) | Posted by | Monday, June 28, 2004 | Review Permanlink

This is what Tony is best at. Instrumental music. His melodies here are highly emotive, and continually morphing. His trademark chord and key changes are here, but of course performed by orhestra rather than his signature keyboards. Still, the music is very beautiful and 'Spring Tide' is one of the ... (read more)

Report this review (#29895) | Posted by | Monday, April 26, 2004 | Review Permanlink

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