WIND & WUTHERING

The last of the GENESIS albums to reach truly epic proportions, much of it fueled by the stellar songwriting of Tony BANKS and Steve HACKETT. "Wind & Wuthering" does have half its heart in the music before ("Trick of the Tail") and after ("Scenes From A Night's Dream", "Follow You, Follow Me"), but, oh, what they do with that other half. The quartet clearly ups the ante from their last album, reclaiming the sublime heights of such seemingly lost wonders as "Selling England By The Pound" on works like "Afterglow", "One For The Vine" and "Blood On The Rooftops".

HACKETT's guitar leads the charge up the hill, re-using the same successful strategy set forth on his own "Voyage of the Acolyte" for sections of "Eleventh Earl of Mar", "Unquiet Slumbers For The Sleepers." (a prototypical HACKETT title) and ". In That Quiet Earth". In fact, his contributions have rarely been so pronounced on any GENESIS album. Phil COLLINS also brings his extracurricular work to bear on the band with the instrumental "Wot Gorilla?", a tune that would sound at home on any number of BRAND X albums.

However, the record's most recognizable moment belongs to Mike RUTHEFORD, the lovely and tranquil "Your Own Special Way". It became their biggest US single to date (the first of many to come), and remains perhaps RUTHEFORD's finest contribution to their catalog. I would have been happy to hear the band continue in this vein for years to come, but it wasn't meant to be. HACKETT left soon after, and his ear for sprawling musical structures was audibly absent from .. "And Then There Were Three". As a result, little of "Wind & Wuthering" appears on the band's official live albums; only "Afterglow" and "One For The Vine" have been so honored, which is something of a shame. In a way, this is the forgotten masterpiece, a last hurrah long since drowned out by the band's commercial success, but one lost chapter that rewards repeated readings.