Genesis-Invisible Touch (1986)
Track Listing:
1. Invisible Touch
2. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
3. Land of Confusion
4. In Too Deep
5. Anything She Does
6. Domino
7. Throwing It All Away
8. The Brazilian
Best Track: In Too Deep
Well it was "good" for 1986 at least...
Like most of the original wave of early 70's Prog bands Genesis started to change their sound to a more commercial and pop-rock orientated style as the 1980's went on. Although generally by doing this they become more commercially successful they also tended to make poorer quality records. Occasionaly one of these pop records would turn out alright (Yes with 90125 and Genesis itself with Genesis), but most of the time these albums turned out below average. Invisible Touch is one of these albums.
Good old Phil Collins, the once legendary drummer turned vocalist who recently started having a "successful" solo career pens the first track Invisible Touch. This isn't a highlight for Phil; calypso style synths over an oh so boring drumbeat make things bad to start with, but then the vocals come in and it turns to ****. Phil can sing but here his voice has a very sharp feel that doesn't sit well. Certainly the cheesy lyrics didn't help, but he wrote them so he has no real excuse. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight has a computer like synth bleeping that keeps on coming back and Phil's vocals are once again poor. Rutherford delivers a decent guitar riff towards the end but that's too little too late on a pop song that goes for 9 minutes.
Land of Confusion turns the tables quite well though. Here Rutherford gets plenty of work with more riffing over a beat like synth line from Banks that actually works. And Phil's vocals actually fit in well with the political anti-Thatcher-Gorbachev-Reagan theme. A far cry from the veiled metaphor dominated social commentary of Selling England By The Pound but they don't have Peter Gabriel now so I guess this is alright. In Too Deep shows some vocal subtlety from Phil which is pretty shocking compared to the first couple of songs. The atmospheric keys and subtle guitar ripples blend in well with the romantic feel. That lovely keyboard passage about 3 and half minutes can melt many a'stony heart or mind. It's an achievement at least, and it's the piece de resistance of the album.
Funky brass in Anything She Does breaks that subtle feel of the last song though. The brass almost reminds me of Sledgehammer from Peter Gabriel's 1986 album So, but Phil lacks Pete's ability to change pitch quickly. It's a pity that Pete had to leave Genesis; certainly putting him as vocalist and lyricist and letting Phil focus on his drumming would work well. Maybe sack Banks too; his synthy shrieks are can be really grating on the ears.
Domino is a 10 minute song that almost seems like a throwback to the Prog years on first glance, but in reality it's just another long synth dominated pop-rock meddle. Not all of it's bad; the part where Phil cooly recites his vocals through a synth cloud feels quite deep, but then the shrieky farts return and Phil loses his vocal calmness. This repeats a few times thoughout the song, with not a lot of variation which really make me lose interest in this song, despite the fact it isn't that bad. Throwing It Away is quite a nice pop ditty that comes out in quite a sincere manner from Phil. Rutherford does have a knack of writing quite lovely pop love ballads that aren't too saccharine ala Your Own Special Way, and this is another example of that school. Even Phil's cooing comes out well, which is a good thing I guess. You'd reckon that would be enough, but instead an ugly sounding instrumental called The Brazilian is tagged on at the end. The main synth melody of the song has a steamy (Brazilian?) style about it but most of the other synth parts are messy jerk offs that are really just poor quality padding. A pop-rock band doing instrumentals? Or an old Prog band trying to reconnect itself somewhat with it's glory days where mainstream success wasn't be all and end all?
The main saving grace of Invisible Touch is that despite the muddled synths and badly applied vocals on some of the tracks all of them are least listenable to an extent. There's nothing truly horrendous here, but Genesis would change that in the next few albums. And at least there are a smattering of good songs here. After all these guys still had some talent left after all didn't they?
8/15