A Curious Feeling

Tony Banks' first solo album borrowed faint elements of Genesis' early progressive sound, making his debut release the strongest in his catalog. Solid keyboard movements lend themselves to mystic, fantasy-like excursions found in tracks such as "From the Undertow," "Somebody Else's Dream," and "The Waters of Lethe," one of the album's strongest cuts. Banks manages to capture the wonderment and allure that enveloped Genesis' Peter Gabriel days in a number of his tracks, yet he filters out the instrumental intricacies, unorthodox time signatures, and complex poetry which enveloped these works to create a milder but equally effective progressive realm, thus generating a fair amount of musical distinction across the album. Banks has refreshingly disposed of any coagulated instrumental pretentiousness that one might have thought would be present, as cuts like "For a While," "In the Dark," and the title track verge on a new age sort of keyboard/guitar beguilement. Vocalist Kim Beacon, who has worked with the Walkie Talkies, String Driven Thing, and Thin Lizzy, is quite significant throughout, as is the atmospheric percussion work of Chester Thompson. Later efforts from Banks began to show a drift toward commercial pop, much like Genesis' material, making A Curious Feeling and, to a lesser extent, 1983's The Fugitive his most compelling work.