...calling All Stations...by Genesis

It is completely unfair to refer to this as a "Genesis" album; however, that is what they have chosen to do, so that is how it must be received. After the departure of longtime lead vocalist/drummer Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford wanted to press on, and continue to play the music they had been playing for most of their lives. So they recruited singers. After listening to an album by the band Stiltskin, they decided to bring that band's lead singer, Ray Wilson, into the fold. His voice and writing had the pop sensibilities that they had been cultivating since the departure of former guitarist Steve Hackett in the late 70's, so he seemed to be a good fit.

Mike & Tony had been charter members of the band, and had been playing together for decades, so it was no easy task to be dropped into the band and expected to gel, but they tried. The results are mixed. There are some excellent prog rock songs here. In particular, "Calling All Stations" and "The Dividing Line" produce some excellent instrumental moments. But the pop songs are a noticeable drop-off for the group. "Shipwrecked" and "Not About Us" are serviceable ballads; their releases as singles did little to compete with previous gems such as "In Too Deep" or "Throwing It All Away". And that may be the problem, they chose to perform underneath the Genesis name, so they had nearly 3 decades worth of history to live up to, and they just couldn't do it. The lead single, "Congo", is an interesting prog-ish song, but maybe not the best example of the new Genesis dynamic. "Small Talk" is simply insufferable. "One Man's Fool" actually does a good job of balancing the progressive/pop dynamic, and is a good album track, but there is nothing here that really grabs the listener and leaves them begging for more. Which is sort of a shame, because there were a number of B-sides released that would have actually been better than several of the tracks that made the album..."Anything Now" is actually my favorite track from this combination, it was released as a B-Side to "Not About Us".

Overall, this might have made a good start to a new band, but what it actually turns out to be is a weak finish to a legendary band. There are some tracks worth hearing, but unless you are either a Ray Wilson/Stiltskin fan, or a truly hardcore, all-era Genesis fan, this entry is completely skippable. If you didn't like their previous entry, "We Can't Dance", you most likely will get nothing from this one.