Album Title: Timeless
Artist: The Watch
Nationality: Italian
Year: 2011
Subgenre: RPI / Classic Prog
Player(s): Simone Rossetti (Flute & Vox), Marco Fabbri (Drums), Giorgio Gabriel (Guitars), Valerio De Vittorio (Keyboards), Stefano Castrucci (Bass, Guitars)
Familiarity: I have the album these guys did as
The Night Watch from eight years ago, and it a lot better than this album. What happened guys?
Favourite track(s): “Soaring On”
Why? Reminds me a lot of
Trespass, which is the best I can say for it.
Least favourite track(s): Too bored to pick one
Why? Its hard to hate something that doesn't interest you a whole lot in the first place. In the same way Trollheart is fairly indifferent to a lot of Yes's classic 70's stuff, I'm the same way for a lot of the Gabriel era Genesis stuff.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? None.
Factoids you'd like to share? Nope.
End impression: First of all, Genesis has always been the least interesting among the original progressive rock bands in some ways. I've always liked them well enough and have most of their albums, but maybe I would have needed to see them live back in the day to really appreciate something like
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, because they're given way too much praise as it is. In comparison,
ELP were also quite pompous, but their lack of a lead guitarist made the power-trio dynamic a helluva ride for a live show and they still sold millions of records. And at least
Yes had a great spiritual vision backing up their pomposity and some fiery interplay, which is why they're #1 (and probably always will be so) for most of the old school prog fans. So I'll be frank: nothing Genesis has ever done, not even SEBTP or Foxtrot, holds a candle to albums like
Relayer or even
Fragile....so why then do Genesis remain the prog band everyone ends up trying to ape, particularly the neo-proggers of the 80's and beyond?
What made Gabriel-era Genesis tolerable (such as
Trespass and
Nursery Cryme) was a keen grasp of songwriting, an awesome sense of whimsy and the willingness to spin us some curious and fantastical yarns in musical form. The Watch don't have either of those things on
Timeless, and their lead vocalist isn't as good as Gabriel was in his prime either. Both of these attributes (or lack thereof) really hurt an otherwise promising band, and it makes me think they could really learn a thing or two from bands like
Big Big Train in the songwriting department, a great group who have taken their Genesis influences and actually progressed beyond them in such a way that they're actually better currently than the band who originally inspired them!
Rating: 2.0. Once you've heard a band or two who actually beat Genesis at their own game, it makes it hard to give a good rating to a band who can't seem to figure out how to find their own sound.