WIND & WUTHERING

This album is very much the album that comes between A Trick of the Tail and ...And Then There Were Three..., but mainly in sound. The writing is actually even more romantic and sophisticated than A Trick of the Tail, and is more of a whole, cohesive piece of music. On "Mad Man Moon", from the previous album, Tony Banks showed great playing skill, but on this album's extended piece, "One For the Vine", he shows his ability to compose and arrange a truly rich piece of music, using great examples of melody, motifs, dynamics, and textrural layering. The song also boasts some of his most thought provoking lyrics, creatively illustrating a theme that is common throughout history, the passing on of the torch of leadership and the seldom understood strains and growing processes that come with it. That song is followed by one of the most beatiful love songs I've ever heard, Mike Rutherford's "Your Own Special Way", which is far more sweeping and poetic than your standard love ballad fare. On the other side, we have "Blood On the Rooftops", a highly sophisticated piece of music by Steve Hackett and Phil Collins that dryly expresses a view that I very much agree with: that there's nothing good or original on television. We get to hear Phil Collins' more Brand X brand of drumming on the instrumental "...In That Quiet Earth", "All In a Mouse's Night" has some great organ and drum interaction, and a very mellodramatic solo from Steve Hackett. The whole album is very ornate and condusive to visual imagination, and even the songs that have more of a rock element also have their pastoral counterparts, like the breathtaking middle break in "Eleventh Earl of Mar." It would have been nice to have Steve Hackett featured more, but one can hardly complain when the music is this carefully crafted and tells such a complete musical story from beginning to end. Another progressive masterpiece from Genesis.