The Batlord

Never heard of it.

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Trollheart

Hah! Caught you reading, you closet proghead you!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

I have, as those who have read my writings before are aware, a bugbear about bands who title any album other than their first with their name. I understand the idea behind self-titling your debut: you want to get your name out there, you want the album to reflect who you are, or maybe you just can't think up a cool title. That's okay. You can even call your other albums [Insert band name here] II, III, IV etc. No problem with that. But when you've released eleven albums, with creative titles like Wind and Wuthering, Nursery Cryme and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, you're surely not stuck for ideas. So maybe the album title was conceived in a last-ditch attempt to show people that the Genesis on Abacab was not the real Genesis, that here they were getting back to basics?

Well, that's a fine idea, but the trouble is that the twelfth album did nothing of the sort. While I was glad to hear the mellotron back in service after so long away, and the album does have one epic, fairly progressive-ish song, generally it's a continuation of the previous outing, with pop songs and a lot of humour too, some of it perhaps very misplaced, as I shall explain later. This, after all, was the album that Kerrang! Called “A Genesis album for people who hate Genesis.” Not good. Not good at all.


Genesis (1983)

Nevertheless, despite or perhaps even because of that, they scored another number one with the album and their highest ever single chart placing, when “Mama”, the opening track, went to number four in the UK. Even in the hard-to-crack US market, it hit number nine. So maybe they made the right decision. Well, commercially they had of course, but I'm sure they began shedding fans by the cartload with the onslaught begun by Abacab, continued here and with the next album almost banging in the final nails in what was Genesis's progressive rock coffin. Naturally, millions stayed true to them, but for diehard Genesis fans who had grown up on the seventies material, well, if they wanted slick pop songs there was hundreds of bands they could listen to, and they must have wondered, as did I at the time, where their band had gone?

It is however an encouraging start, as “Mama” opens with breathy, determined drumming from Collins and then that familiar wailing keyboard from Tony Banks opens the song, although I see from the lineup that the drumming was done by a machine, operated by Rutherford! Says it all, really. The most signature sound to this album, almost, and it's not even the drummer making, or even operating the machine that's making it. The vocal contains a harsh, almost mocking laugh from Collins, followed by a sort of groan, which became the hook in the song, because to be honest it's not that super a track otherwise. It's interesting, and it sold, as I say, taking it to the fourth position in the charts in the UK, the highest Genesis had ever been in their career, but at its heart it's a song about a man wanting to visit a hooker, and let's be honest here, that's not the sort of subject matter we've been used to hearing Genesis sing about. They had left the airy-fairy castles, as I think Gabriel referred to their earlier lyrics, behind with the earthy honesty of The Lamb, but sort of returned to them for the first two albums without him, whereas with ... And Then There Were Three..., Duke and Abacab they had returned slightly there, with songs like “The lady lies”, “Cul de sac” and “Dodo”, among others, but here they were taking a stab at being a sort of “urban” band, without the real street cred to do so.

The song is also too long at nearly seven minutes, though it does work well. Generally speaking however, it is pretty much the same melody running through it, and very much the verse/verse/chorus/verse structure they had so actively tried to keep away from in the early days. If that wasn't bad enough, the next track, another single, bops along like some latter-day Beatles pop song (written in fact by Collins in tribute to the Fab Four; that's fine, but why didn't he keep it for his solo albums?) and “That's all” demonstrates the ordinary, chart-pleasing direction in which most if not all of Genesis's music was heading at this point. It's okay; I like the song, but there's no way anyone would recognise it as a Genesis song. Driven on a bouncy bass and jangly guitar with Banks relegated to some honky-tonk piano, it's not quite “The Fountain of Salmacis”, now is it? It didn't do as well as “Mama” here (though it reached number six in Ireland, shame on us!) but oddly performed much better across the great shining sea, where the Americans lapped up its easy pop sensibilities and pushed it to number six. Sigh.

The only real relief then comes in the form of the only song on the album that could really be called progressive rock, a two-part semi-suite (sorry Tom!) in which the first, shorter part is called “Home by the sea” and is vocal, the second, far longer one being an instrumental, almost, up until the point Collins comes in with a reprise of the lyric from the first part, and it's called, ingeniously, “Second home by the sea”. It's still my favourite on the album by miles, with its hard-edged guitar riff opening it, Banks then coming in with the familiar lush keyboards we've missed so much, a bouncy vocal from Collins reminding me in ways of “Robbery, assault and battery”. I think it's about a haunted place, but I really don't know. As Collins sings ”Help us someone! Let us out of here!/ We're living here so long undisturbed/ Dreaming of a time we were free” you get the idea of people being trapped here, unable to leave and relating their story to new arrivals, who perhaps then get trapped too.

The second part of the song, as I say, “Second home by the sea”, runs for over six minutes --- actually there's not the huge difference between the two that I thought: one is 4:46 and the other 6:22 --- and slips easily in from the first part, driven on powerful drumming and a trumpeting keyboard, with some fine and even funky guitar licks from Mike Rutherford, and it's a small echo of the Genesis I used to know until it fades almost away, to be replaced by this new “pop” band who call themselves Genesis. It's interesting when the vocal comes back in at the end; you've more or less expected this will be an instrumental all the way, then, like “Duke's travels” the vocal just slides in, and it's quite effective.

The rest of the album is garbage. That's not fair, but in all fairness, it struggles to recover from the execrable “Illegal alien”, where Genesis go out of their way to mock Mexicans, and come very close to racism, all in the name of humour. That's all very well, but when you say things in the lyric like ”Over the border there/ Lies the promised land/ Where everything comes easy/ You just hold out your hand” and ”I've got a sister who'll/ Be willing to oblige/ She will do anything now/ To help me get to the outside” you can't help but think they're denigrating a whole country and their attempts to carve out a new life for themselves in the USA. And they're not even American! The video for the single (yes, it was released as a single, and flopped badly, especially in America) doesn't help, with the guys dressed as Mexicans and affecting the accent, demonstrating every Mexican stereotype you can think of. It's a poppy, boppy song which introduces for I think the first time trumpet on a Genesis album, played by Phil Collins (Oh no I'm wrong aren't I? They had a whole damn horn section on Abacab) just to give it that “authentic” Mexican flavour. Madre de dos dios! I really have a problem with this song. If they had even engaged some Mexican musicians to help on it, it might have given it a bit more credibility, but as it stands it just seems like one of the nastiest, most racist songs written in the eighties, all under the guise of “comedy” or “satire”. Yeah, I know: it's all in good fun. But is it?

It's a poor crop after that. Almost as if there is a dark spirit hovering over the album, nothing can really lift the feeling of anger and disgust that lingers after “Illegal alien”, and while “Taking it all too hard” might be the band's unconscious attempts to say “Look man, it was just a joke!” it doesn't work. Collins ditches the false moustache and sombrero, and the terrible accent, and knuckles down to what is essentially a ballad, the first on the album, but the sentiments don't ring true and it just sounds to me like a half-hearted attempt at a not-really-sincere apology. Nice bright keys from Banks, a soft sort of laidback feel to the song, but the opening verse, when Collins sings ”I know you'll never admit/ You were ever really to blame/ Everything's a game to you” sound like the response of the fans (or ex-fans) south of the border. The lines ”I cannot help you/ It's much too late” seem to say it all.

Then again, it could be deeper and perhaps darker than that. I realise I'm making my own interpretation of the lyric here, and could be totally wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but when I think about it now, this almost seems more like Genesis castigating the fans who won't get on board with the new sound. When Collins sings "Oh no, not the same mistakes again/ You're taking it all too hard" he could be venting exasperation at the "old" fans, while this almost seems to be backed up by "The old days are gone/ And they're better left alone/ I cannot help you/ It's much too late" which really seems to be a smack in the teeth for the older fans. Mind you, there is a line which looks to be a sort of possible regret, when Collins mutters, almost ashamedly, "But I still miss you/ I keep it to myself."

If I may digress slightly here (who am I talking to? Nobody's reading this!) one of the things that really annoys me about prog rock bands is their eventual need to distance themselves from the label. Marillion are the same, and though I love them, it's hard to hear that your idols are now essentially denigrating their past work. I mean, when Genesis were churning out top prog albums like Trespass and Foxtrot they didn't have a problem being called progressive rock. They even gloried in it to an extent. But now, suddenly, in the space of five years, they're turning their back on their roots and their old fans. Talk about ungrateful. They're not the only ones, but it hurts, coming from a band I've followed pretty much all my life.

“Just a job to do” merges the world of “new” Genesis and Collins's own solo career in a sort of fast, funky number which seems to refer to (allegorically or otherwise) a hitman of some sort, but again aspects of the possible apology for “Illegal alien” persist as he sings the opening lines ”It's no use saying that it's all right”. Indeed. The shouts of ”Bang! Bang! Bang!/ And down you go!” are a world away from ”Crawlers covered the floor/ In the red and ochre corridor”. The tune itself is okay and there's a great melody to it, but it's so un-Genesis (or what I thought of as Genesis anyway) it just hurts. “Silver rainbow” is probably one of the weakest tracks on the album, and does nothing for me with its marching beat and semi-sexual innuendo in the lyric; the vocal harmonies are terrible (something Genesis used to be able to do so well) and the obvious theft of some of Gabriel's own solo rhythms for the opening is almost sad. The lyric is terrible: ”If you're sitting there beside her/ And a bear comes in the room” --- uh, what? The chorus is just awful and thrown together.

There's some respite at the end, as the album makes a valiant effort to rally and almost allows the band to pull it out of the fire in the eleventh hour, with a song that perhaps makes a promise, a promise the band failed to keep on the next album. “It's gonna get better” swells up on Banks's swirling Hammond organ and has a really old-style Genesis melody about it, another ballad yes but a good one. It's not good enough though for me to ignore the last four tracks, and I ended the album more on a hopeful note than an expectant one with this ringing in my ears. Had I known what was coming, perhaps I would just have left it at that.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

Mama
That's all
Home by the sea
Second home by the sea
Illegal alien
Taking it all too hard
Just a job to do
Silver rainbow
It's gonna get better

It's hard to see why Genesis changed so much over the course of three albums ---- well, no it isn't. It's all about popularity, money and chart singles of course. Probably on the back of the success both of “Follow you follow me” and Collins's solo career taking off, Genesis must have realised this was the way to go, and certainly with a chart-topping single of his own under his belt, Collins was likely to bring more chart-friendly ideas to his songwriting, and the other two would have been possibly influenced by this. Or maybe they were just fed-up being a band who could sell out huge arenas but had had no chart success. Whatever the reason, it seems they actively went after hit singles here, and the closing line on this album, "It's time for a change” left little doubt that they were preparing to, and working towards, leaving behind their roots and becoming just another pop band.

As the next album would unreservedly show.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Anteater

Great reviews TH. As you know, I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. It was on Duke where Phil Collins' presence became more apparent...IMHO.

But you know (as your review shall demonstrate) I think Invisible Touch was the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. In Too Deep is the most moving pop song of the 1980s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I've heard in rock.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Trollheart

And so we come to the end of the Genesis discography. While this was not their last album, I have reviewed Callling All Stations previously Swan Song: Genesis Calling All Stations here, in the “Swansong” section, so there's no point in me going any further into it. Which leaves just the one album before we close, and for a while there I thought that, yeah, maybe this one might do it. After three relatively substandard albums that owed more to the world of pop than that of rock, particularly progressive rock, the three amigos came back with an album that almost --- almost --- took us back ten years, while yet retaining a modern sensibility about it. It was, very nearly, their version of So.

We Can't Dance (1991)

You would almost think there was a joke hidden in there somewhere, when a band like Genesis, famed for long, complicated, adventurous progressive rock epics suddenly found their songs being played at discos and clubs, and attracting no doubt a younger and more female audience on the strength of their newer material. Whether or which, I don't know, but this album was their fifth consecutive number one in the UK, a top four placing in the USA, and though critics widely panned it, I consider it really the last truly great Genesis album. If there's a successor to A Trick of the Tail and Duke, then I believe this is it.

Again, they're looking more at real-world situations, with the opener, “No son of mine”, concerning the relationship between a man and his father, after the former leaves the family home, and how he finds it hard, even impossible to be accepted back. With a ticking drumbeat and a sort of growling synth, the song is a slow to mid-paced one, with a very honest vocal from Collins, even though it seems unlikely this is drawn from any of the band's actual experiences. Banks sets up the synth soundscape, building layer on layer until it all comes to a great crescendo for the chorus, the drums thumping hard and steady, like a judgement on the unhappy man of the title. It's a dark, bitter song, and the mood changes drastically then for “Jesus he knows me”, where the guys poke fun at TV evangelists, the tune uptempo and boppy, riding on a bubbling synth with lines like ”Just do as I say/ Don't do as I do” and ”You don't need to believe in the hereafter/ Just believe in me!” Of course, this is nothing new: Fish did the same thing on “Big wedge” and The Hooters on “Satellite”, and no doubt there are many many others; the insincerity of these people is common fodder for rock and pop music, but Genesis do add their own little humorous slant here which makes the song something you can't help but like.

Again though, I hear the ghost of “Illegal alien”, especially in the bridge, but I suppose you have to admire their courage, risking alienating a large section of their fanbase possibly. “Driving the last spike” looks at the courage of the men who built Britain's railways, and the conditions under which they worked. It's one of the two epics on the album, which oddly enough are almost exactly the same length, with only a difference of eight seconds between them. Running for just over ten minutes, this one opens with a reflective, lonely guitar from Rutherford, as Collins depicts the story of a man who is ”Leaving my family behind me/ Not knowing what lay ahead” and a sorrowful synth line underpins this necessary step into the unknown. Unlike the previous song, there's a great sense of sincerity and honesty running through this, and an attempt to honour these men, many possibly buried in unmarked graves, who worked and died to make Britain the mighty empire it became. The midsection features a powerful guitar solo and a warbling keyboard passage from Banks which brings it essentially into the second part of the song, as guitar drives it along, the tempo increasing slightly as the unnamed worker sighs ”There has to be a better life!”

There's definitely pride in being British, and respect paid to the men when Collins sings ”They'll never see the likes of us again!” That takes us to the title track, as such. It's actually called “I can't dance”, and is a kind of funky shuffle, very much driven on Rutherford's guitar, with some interesting percussion effects. It's a fun track but there's really nothing in it. Still won an award, though I think that was more for the video. The first of the fillers comes with “Never a time”, which is basically every love song you've ever heard, and robs from the ending of “It's gonna get better” from the Genesis album. This could be on a Collins solo album too and you wouldn't notice much difference.

We get back on track though with the excellent “Dreaming while you sleep”, with its Gabrielesque drums, honking synth and creeping guitar. The story of a man tortured by having been involved in a hit-and-run, he finds he can't sleep and wonders how his victim is. There's a real sense of tension and drama building, mostly in the rather simplistic arrangement of the song. It bursts out on heavy pounding drumming and hard guitar as he tries to rationalise what he has done, and fails --- ”All my life you'll lie silently there/ All my life, in a world so unfair/ And only I'll know why!” --- hoping against hope that the woman in a coma will wake up. It's quite a selfish lyric really: the guy isn't so much bothered about the woman he ran down, so much as he is eaten alive by guilt, and if she were to wake up and survive then that guilt would, for him, be assuaged. Would he admit it was him? Sounds unlikely, as he talks about taking his secret to the grave.

“Tell me why” is another pointless little nod to the evils of the world without actually advancing any solution, almost as good as his “Heat on the street” from ... But Seriously. It's an okay pop song, with some nice parts, but ultimately it's empty. Phil rants about how heartless politicians are, but you know, some of that fortune, Phil, could be put to good use. This is why I have a problem with rich rock or pop stars crying their eyes out about poverty. If I had your money, I'd fucking do something to help! But no: we'll just write a song about it and let others sort it out. Sigh. This line really hits it on the head: ”You say there's nothing you can do/ One rule for them, one for you.” Indeed. I don't like “Living forever” either. It has elements of 1983 Genesis about it, mixed in with some Duke-era stuff, and it's just a little confused. Every time I hear this song I forget what it's like, it just has that little effect on me. The backing vocals are drony and boring and there's a sort of nursery rhyme thrown in too for no good reason.

Luckily, the album rallies again at the end, with four fine tracks to close it out. The first, which I think is the first real ballad, is truly beautiful. “Hold on my heart” has a tumbling drum intro and beautiful lush keys backing Phil's voice, which for once doesn't sound annoying to me. It's a simple song, but then so are the best ballads really. It's also one of caution, as Collins warns his heart to try to take things slowly --- ”Don't rush in this time/ Don't show her how you feel”. There's some lovely understated guitar work from Rutherford, which works really well, and the whole song is really well constructed. I could see this on Duke or ...And Then There Were Three..., though of course it does betray links with Collins's solo work. The next one has received a lot of bad press and criticism, and “Way of the world”, does, in fairness, take a very shrugged shoulders attitude to the injustices we live with every day, spreading the hands and saying “Sure what can you do?” But unlike “Tell me why”, which kind of treads the same lyrical territory, this is saved by its melody and beat, which you really can't help but tap your fingers to. It's like a kind of swing blues or something, rocking along in a midtempo vein. Lyrically it's pretty empty, but it gets a pass due to the melody, and I'm sure it went down well onstage. There's a kind of semi-reggae feel to it also, and since I don't care for reggae, the fact that I still really like this song says a lot. There's a great hook in the chorus, and I remember when I first played the album I began brightening up after the last few tracks, thinking maybe this is going to end well. I wasn't wrong.

I always thought “Since I lost you” was a sad love song, but in fact it appears it's written by Phil Collins for Eric Clapton, in sympathy at the death of his young son which the singer/songwriter commemorated himself in his “Tears in Heaven”. It's a heartbreakingly open song, and Collins sings it with every ounce of emotion he can squeeze into his voice. It rides on a slow blues beat, Tony Banks's strong but supportive piano keeping the line as Collins sings ”It seems in a moment/ Your whole life can shatter” and asks the unanswerable question ”Oh how can life/ Ever be the same?” One of the sincerest songs of sympathy I've ever heard. I loved it before I knew the circumstances behind its lyric, and I love it even more now.

Whether Collins realised his time with Genesis was coming to an end, that he would soon leave the band and concentrate on his solo career and other adventures, I don't know, but the closing “Fading lights” paints a sad but bittersweet picture of a man saying goodbye to his friends after so many good times. Every member of the band outdoes themselves here, and it's the other epic track, just over ten minutes again. When Collins sings ”Like a story that you wish was never ending/ We know sometime/ We must reach the final page/ Still we carry on just pretending/ That there'll always be/ One more day to go” it's touching, and it's perfectly executed. From the tiny taps of the drum machine which recall Phil's big success songs, to the impassioned keyboard solo from Tony Banks in the midsection that runs for so long it almost turns the song into an instrumental at the end, this is the perfect swansong for Genesis.

The vocal is quiet yet strong, wistful but determined, the voice of a man who really doesn't want to leave but knows he has reached that crossroad where he must make one of the hardest decisions of his life. When he sings ”We know that these are the days of our lives/ We will remember.” And if there are to be final memories of Genesis for Phil Collins, then this is probably the best they could fashion. It's well one of my favourites on the album, and pushes into the background the less than stellar tracks that blight the album. It's almost the Genesis of old meeting the Genesis of now in not so much an uneasy truce as a hearty handshake and a wry smile. The solo begins in the fourth minute and continues, more or less uninterrupted, through to the eighth, possibly Tony Banks's own personal farewell to his longtime friend and bandmate, while Mike Rutherford keeps up with him all the way, and Phil bashes out the drums, quite possibly with the hint of a tear in his eye.

And in the end, it fades away like its title, the final word left to the departing singer, with the last words of Phil Collins ever on a studio Genesis album, ”Remember...”

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

No son of mine
Jesus he knows me
Driving the last spike
I can't dance
Never a time
Dreaming while you sleep
Tell me why
Living forever
Hold on my heart
Way of the world
Since I lost you
Fading lights

While it's certainly not the perfect Genesis album, I believe We Can't Dance is miles ahead of anything they had done since 1980, and would have been a fitting end for the band. Yes, there are duff tracks on it, but luckily the good ones are more than good enough to compensate for the few fillers. As a farewell to the fans, and to his bandmates, I don't think Phil Collins could have done better, and personally (though who am I to say?) I think they should have left it at that. However, they wanted to continue and so, for the second time in their forty-plus year career, Genesis went in search of a new vocalist. They found one, but he only lasted for the one album before Mike and Tony decided the magic wasn't really there anymore, and called it a day.

Since then, Collins has partially returned to Genesis, playing live with them on tours, but as yet rumours of a new album featuring the trio have not come to pass. Maybe they never will, and maybe it's better that way. As they say, and as Peter Gabriel seems to believe, you can't go back, and to try to recapture what you had ten, twenty, thirty years ago is like chasing a rainbow. So maybe they're better leaving well alone. If so, then this is where the Genesis story ends. It's been a long, at times rocky ride, starting out as a group of unsure teenagers writing music they didn't really want to write, to end up with a fully-blown rock opera which imploded the band and then set them on a course straight for superstardom.

Over the decades they helped give birth to progressive rock, made enemies and friends, explored whole new avenues of their talent, and for some, like me, created the soundtrack of their lives. For that, I will always be grateful to them. But rather than follow the words of “Please don't ask” and asking “Maybe we can try, maybe it would work this time”, I think it's best if the Lamb lies down for good this time, and let the three of them retire in peace and contentment to their homes by the sea.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

As 2016 dawns, it's amazing to note that we've just hit

views: that's a
Quarter of a MILLION, people!


It's surely a tribute to perseverance and misplaced optimism and blind stubbornness that people keep coming back to this journal, hoping against hope that there'll be something to interest them,even though its history clearly tells us otherwise. So thanks for keeping the dream alive, and one day, who knows? You may actually find something here you'll like!

For 2016, though, with the demise of Metal Month I intend to try to post more here, making it mostly (though not completely or solely) a journal for the review of discographies, to tie in with my new thread as well as my own personal preferences. This is not to say there won't be other material, but as of now I haven't really much written for here, and I do have other journals that I have been also neglecting, so for now I'm going to concentrate on discographies.

At the moment, these are the ones I have. They're in alphabetical order, but that doesn't mean that's how they'll be reviewed. Also, these discogs will not follow the pattern of last year's, ie done in one go and nothing posted in between. This year, and all subsequent years, I'll be doing it like in "Bitesize", where I review the first album from one discog, the first from another, then a third, then maybe back to the second from the first, if you know what I mean. I'll be mixing it up, but the discographies will of course always be in order. As more are recommended to me via the new thread I will of course add them. As each is done, I'll post a progress report as I go through them.

Note: I've had one of my trademark changes of heart. It seems silly to carry on the same discography in both journals, so any that I'll be doing here that are currently running in "Bitesize" will be just transferred here and will no longer appear there. Not all of the discogs will, of course, but those that are chosen for the larger project will be removed from "Bitesize", other than any reviews that have already been posted. There's simply no point in my doing two separate full reviews, one long and one short. I may add others to "Bitesize", I may not, but any that are now going to run here will only run here. If I've already started one in "Bitesize" which is now being transferred here, I will of course rewrite the reviews for any albums already done there.

The CURRENT LIST

Bathory (The Batlord)
Black Sabbath
Blue Oyster Cult (The Identity Matrix)
Richard Dawson (Frownland)
Dire Straits
Steve Earle
Eagles
Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)
Fleetwood Mac
Hawkwind
Höyry-Kone (grindy)
Journey
Motorhead
Nine Inch Nails
Alan Parsons and the Alan Parsons Project
Queensryche (Anteater)
Chris Rea
Roxy Music (Pet_Sounds)
Rush
Sigh (mythsofmetal)
Supertramp
Threshold
Judie Tzuke
U2 (Neapolitan)
Robert Wyatt (Plainview)

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018