VOYAGE OF THE ACOLYTE

An awesome album coming at a time of uncertainty for the GENESIS crew, Voyage of the Acolyte contains some strikingly sensitive and beautiful guitar-based atmospherics not unlike that of ANTHONY PHILLIPS on his soon-to-arrive Geese and the Ghost (also with important contributions from MICHAEL RUTHERFORD and PHIL COLLINS). (I find it interesting that neither of these two gems contains any help from keyboardist Tony Banks.) While there is a cohesive flow and consistency to this album--feel and mood---there is something a little muddy in the recording/engineering that always left me feeling a bit frustrated--I wanted to hear the distinctive contributions of all the instruments but they always felt a bit too quiet or muddled. Also some of the sections--as beautiful as they are--are either repeated too formulaically or go on a bit too long. I liked the album a lot back in the day--played it quite a bit--and still play "Star of Sirius" and "Shadow of the Heirophant" from time to time. It's just recorded too quietly (for some instruments). IMO, Steve's best solo work of the 70s-80s is on his third album, Spectral Mornings.