Anteater

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.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

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Unknown Soldier

Album title: Timeless
Artiste: The Watch
Nationality: Italian
Year: 1970, I mean 2011!
Subgenre: RPI, but more like Genesis clones
Player(s): Simone Rossetti (vocals, flute), Marco Fabbri (Drums), Giorgio Gabriel (No, I'm serious!) (Guitars), Valerio De Vittorio (Keyboards), Stefano Castrucci (Bass, Guitars)
Familiarity: Had never heard of them.
Favourite track(s): “One Day”
Why? "One Day" as quite simply the song resonated quite well with me, but even then I'd hardly call it great.
Least favourite track(s): "Thunder Has Spoken"
Why? From the word go the song sounded like a watered down version of Genesis in every aspect and pretty much disliked most of the rest as well.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? Said they were Genesis aficionados and with a sound like Genesis in 2011, so I wasn't impressed.
Factoids you'd like to share? None
End impression: I came to this album thinking that Trollheart hasn't given it enough of a chance and I'd find something good on it despite everybody claiming how they were a Genesis rip-off, but how wrong I was and how right they all were.
Comments: By the time of the fourth track "In the Wilderness" I was totally cheesed off listening to this album, as quite simply this track probably rates as the most flagrant Genesis rip-off of them all and that is really saying something as well! By the time of "Let Us Now Make Love" I just wanted to pull the plug on the album but realised that there wasn't too much left so ploughed on and it was painful. It's obvious that this album was selected by the original list creator as he can't get enough of classic Genesis, even if it's like a fizzy drink gone flat! Italian prog bands really are a mixed bad but this is probably the worst I've come across but the band are decent musicians and the singer can muster his voice like Peter Gabriel a bit so it's not complete crap, other than this I've nothing more to add to what has already been said and easily the worst album so far on here.

Rating: 2.0

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Trollheart

Thanks guys. This is going to be some feat, as its overall score is going to bump poor old Ian Anderson up the ladder! Yes it's easily the worst we'e heard here, in fact I'd go so far as to say perhaps the worst prog album I've ever heard, though not the worst album (19ADD's "Dead river" --- well named! --- takes that dubious honour) and I definitely never want to hear anything more from them.

Ant, I didn't realise you had such loathing for Gabriel-era Genesis. My god! Still, I guess you feel about them as I do about 70s Yes, though I'm prepared at some point to listen to some of that as I have not really given them much of a chance.

One more point: US, though they do rip off Genesis to an alarming and embarrassing degree, "In the wilderness" is actually a cover of a Genesis song off their debut, so loath as I am to defend them, it's not fair to call THAT one a Genesis rip off: it's a Genesis song.

I'll get tomorrow's choice up soon, let's hope it's better than this. What am I saying? How could it be worse?

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Anteater

I definitely don't loathe Genesis, but they are my least favorite of the "original" prog bands. They're a mixed bag: Trespass is a stone cold classic and I like parts of everything they've done with Gabriel and Collins, but The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway has never really clicked with me as a concept record and I'm not crazy about Selling England By The Pound either. Hell, I'll probably be thrown into the fire later for saying this, but I'd put Calling All Stations (the full album with B-sides included) in my top three records by the band just for the fact that it tried to stretch a bit beyond the styles of the band's previous frontmen.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

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Unknown Soldier

Well I thought I'd heard that song before and it was so lifelike

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

OK, the bad news: there IS at least one more album from The Watch on this guy's list --- guess he has not as good taste as we thought! The good news: if we spin that way I'm ignoring it and spinning again. Not putting anyone -- least of all me --- through THAT again!

But to this week's choice. We came up with
206
which gives us a much more palatable


X --- Spock's Beard

So, let's get listening and reviewing then guys. I know everyone has stuff to do but if we can avoid last week's last-minute reviews that would be great (says he who has the time to run SIX journals and still smartmouth off!)

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Xurtio

I'll try to jump in on this one this week. Reviews are due the 14th'ish?

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H̓̇̅̉yͤ͏mͬ͂ͧn͑̽̽̌ͪ̑͐͟o̴͊̈́͑̇m͛͌̓ͦ̑aͫ̽ͤ̇n̅̎͐̒ͫ͐c̆ͯͫ̋ ̔̃́eͯ͒rͬͬ̄҉

Trollheart

Nice to have you along. Reviews are actually due 13th for Core members (there are three of us, the founders so to speak) and 20th for Standard Members if they want the extension, though ideally all reviews in by Sunday would be what we would aim for.

If you're reviewing, check the matrix which appears on page 65 I think (or just copy it from any of the albums already reviewed: I'll be posting mine in the next day or so) and on or about the same page is our rating system.

Welcome!

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Unknown Soldier

Who are you? Well whoever you are welcome

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Tut tut US: check your intro threads. The guy's a newbie into prog and he has a band. What more could we ask for?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018