Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Genesis
Label: Virgin Records
Release: 1997
Rating: 3.5/5
And then there were two…When Phil Collins left Genesis after the “We Can’t Dance” tour, almost nobody seriously expected the band to keep making music. But the indestructible original members, keyboardist Tony Banks and guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford, decided to put out the (very likely) last studio album from this legendary band. The two masters didn’t throw in the towel; they went looking for a new singer and proved that, apart from Banks, nobody in this band was indispensable. After a long search, they ended up picking the then little-known Scottish singer Ray Wilson, a member of Stiltskin and, as it happens, a huge Genesis fan himself. Wilson’s incredibly versatile voice gives the album a darker tone and is really distinctive, and thanks to that versatility and darker color it’s closer to Gabriel than to Collins. At times it sounds like a halfway point between the two. Now and then it even veers toward the voice of Paul Carrack (singer of Mike and the Mechanics, Rutherford’s solo band). Wilson was a brilliant choice and undoubtedly a great discovery. As for a new full-time drummer after the departure of a drummer of Collins’s caliber, they didn’t look for one and instead decided to bring in two superb session drummers. For the album they picked Moroccan Nir Zidkyahu and Nick D’Virgilio, drummer of modern prog rock heroes Spock’s Beard (currently the band’s singer as well). The difference between the two drummers’ styles is obvious, and you can hear it in which tracks each of them plays on. While Zidkyahu prefers a harder, full-force attack, D’Virgilio is more at home on slower-paced songs. Even if they sound a bit unimaginative at times, most of the drumming on the album is technically superb. The legendary duo also breathes a little easier again after a long time. That goes above all for Rutherford, who delivers some of his better moments as a guitarist on this record. I can’t remember his guitar ever sounding heavier than it does here. Banks, meanwhile, is excellent on keyboards as usual.
The record is mostly made up of outstanding AOR tracks like the title track, the hit “Congo”, “Shipwrecked” and “Not About Us”, which should appeal to fans of early-’80s Genesis as well as fans of good AOR, plus a few more complex compositions that, ironically (considering this very band inspired the birth of the genre), lean toward neo-progressive rock. The opening title track, which kicks off with Rutherford’s almost metal riff, is one of the best on the album. Next comes “Congo”, the album’s only hit. With its African rhythms and Wilson’s way of singing, it very obviously recalls some solo work by Peter Gabriel. The AOR gem “Shipwrecked” is also an extremely tasteful track with a wonderful chorus. “Alien Afternoon” develops beautifully after a slow intro, mostly thanks to Banks’s great keyboards. What really impresses are the “spacey” backing vocals and Rutherford’s excellent riff in the middle section. The track is an interesting progressive piece, though it’s really more of a neo-prog piece already. “Not About Us” is another great AOR track with a brilliant acoustic guitar intro and superb Banks arrangements, and it has all the qualities of a hit. “If That’s What You Need” is a very good “power” ballad, the kind Wilson would later love making as a solo artist. The dramatic “The Dividing Line” is pure neo-prog à la Marillion (the Hogarth era), with a brilliant band jam and great drumming. It can’t compete with the old Hackett-Banks-Collins-Rutherford fusion, but it’s the first track in a long time built in that direction. “Uncertain Weather” is the track that most recalls classic ’70s Genesis, mostly in its atmosphere, which makes it one of the best things on the album. “Small Talk” is a pseudo-funk track where Wilson’s vocals recall Mike and the Mechanics singer Paul Carrack. “There Must Be Some Other Way” sounds like a sermon to the hapless Phil Collins, who just can’t hold on to his wife, with phenomenal vocals from Wilson, who gets seriously fired up at times and sounds like some hard rock singer. That’s something Collins was never capable of doing with his voice. The instrumental section in the second half, with Banks’s excellent keyboard textures, is superb too. It’s a track with a very good message, a very realistic reflection of the problems of modern-day relationships. Of course it’s light-years away from the band’s past compositions and lyrics, but after a long time it’s finally something new. The closing “One Man’s Fool”, also the longest composition on the album, recalls one of their better pop rock numbers from the early ’80s in its opening section, rhythm and chorus, but then develops beautifully once it enters the instrumental section. This is a track that grows on you after several listens and is undoubtedly one of the album’s best. It’s a brilliant cross between AOR and progressive rock and will delight fans of the more “commercial” Genesis as well as, say, Asia.
The record is an exceptionally pleasant surprise and a step in the right direction after the pop experiments with Collins, even if it’s still closer to AOR than to progressive rock. With a new lead singer and a fresh, darker sound (the kind they had in their “classic” period), “Calling All Stations”, even though it’s their least typical album precisely because of the vocals and drums, marks a return to where the band left off somewhere around “Duke” (1980). I always have to note with sadness that it was exactly this album that could have revived the band and slowly brought it back to its “old ways”, but sadly it didn’t, because they got scared of pressure from the music market. It’s a real shame, because Ray Wilson is a great singer, because “Calling All Stations” is a great AOR record with plenty of progressive rock elements, better than most of their pop rock records with Collins, and because you can feel a new energy on the album. A kind of liberation from Collins’s dominance and a desire to return to the roots. But since the album was a commercial flop in corporate America, where it was a dark time for classic rock back then, Banks and Rutherford decided to call it quits shortly after the end of the unsuccessful tour (which only covered Europe, while the US leg was, quite rightly, canceled). I’m convinced the next album would have been even better and even closer to classic Genesis if they had ignored the corrupt music market. But the legend was over, and instead of carrying on with the ambitious and extremely talented Wilson, Banks and Rutherford chose to devote themselves to their solo careers. “Calling All Stations” thus remains, for now, the final act of these giants of progressive rock.
Lineup
Ray Wilson – vocals
Mike Rutherford – guitar, bass guitar
Tony Banks – keyboards
Guest musicians:
Nir Zidkyahu – drums and percussion
Nick D’Virgilio – drums and percussion – tracks 4 (first half), 6, 8, 9
Production
Nick Davis, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford
Track list
1. Calling All Stations (5:43)
2. Congo (4:50)
3. Shipwrecked (4:22)
4. Alien Afternoon (7:50)
5. Not About Us (4:37)
6. If That’s What You Need (5:12)
7. The Dividing Line (7:44)
8. Uncertain Weather (5:28)
9. Small Talk (5:01)
10. There Must Some Other Way (7:53)
11. One Man’s Fool (8:45)
Total running time: 67:25
