Customer Reviews

A Curious Feeling

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I originally bought this album a couple of decades ago and to be honest the muddy production was a bit of a turnoff. I eventually forgot the album, but bits and pieces of tunes from the album kept surfacing in my memory. I couldn't remember where they were from, but they just wouldn't go away. Then a couple of years ago I was going through my old LP collection and found ACF. I put it on the turntable and was just blown away by this bittersweet symphony! The story is heartbreaking, as is the music in many places. The ending fanfare on "Forever Morning" is one of the most evocative pieces of music I've ever heard; I can just imagine someone waking and standing while watching a glorious sunrise to that music... the droning organ combined with the strings creates and overpowering wall of sound. It also makes the character's downfall through the rest of the album much more touching.

This is definitely an album that grows on you. Forget the average production, the average singer; listen to the melodies, the lyrics and the orchestra-like instrumentation. A classic, period.

I'm old enough to have heard just about everything "prog rock" has to offer. And I'm the first to admit there is much to be ashamed of (the excesses of ELP, the vocals of Marrilion, the musical ugliness of Dream Theater, Asia, Genesis after Wind & Wuthering, later incarnations of King Crimson, and so on). No wonder so many people hate complex music!

But there have been a few moments of real joy, beauty and musical thrills. In The Court Of The Crimson King, A Trick Of The Tail, Stand Up, Chicago #1, Shades Of Deep Purple, The Doors, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed, McDonald & Giles, Smallcreep's Day, Spectral Mornings, Anthony Phillips' 1984 and anything by the still undiscovered Kevin Gilbert. You're either nodding your head or have no clue to what this paragraph says....sorry.

If you had any doubts, A Curious Feeling makes it clear Tony Banks was the musical "brains" behind Genesis. Everything good from Genesis is traceable to him and/or Anthony Phillips. The one thing he can't do is sing and on this album, he doesn't.

Its fair to say if you like Genesis you'll love this disc. But please don't lump this in with crap like Follow You, Follow Me. This is the real deal. And while you're at it, pick up 21st Century Schizoid Band's album. Thirty years on and these guys still write and play better than the big current acts.

You can really hear Tony's contributions to Genesis on this album. Those gorgeous chord progressions, even in their simplist forms, are so reminiscent of his work with Genesis. The instrumental songs are lush; the vocal songs are very good. "Lucky Me" is such a beautifully composed song, and "For A While" sounds instantly familiar even if you've never heard it before - it's just one of those naturally appealing songs. My only gripe is with the horribly dissonant fourth verse of the chorus in "Somebody Else's Dream": for me, that just ruined an otherwise powerful song with magnificient chords. The CD sound is a bit veiled and soft, but a great album anyway.

Not much to say about this albums brilliance except that the nut who thought that Kim Beacon was the sad element on this album probably needs a labotomy, their ears syringed or get a new brain. Kims vocal is as close as you can get to being soul without being black. My single criticism would be a general lack of punch throughout.

If you liked Genesis's "Duke" at all, GET THIS CD NOW. The music is much in the same vein. Banks plays his trademark electric piano sound throughout. The singer isn't as blah as some of the reviewers would have you think, he even has some of the vocal stylings of Collins at times. The drums are more subdued than if Collins had played them, but all in all they're in the same style.

It would have been interesting to see what this album would have sounded like with Phil singing, but it stands by itself just fine. It grows on you!!

This is the finest work of Banks,in a solo album project.
They are excellent lyrics and the musicians on the cd is
fantastic.Best song are "Curious Feelings,my favorite is
"Lucky ME". This is written in a very personal nature.
Being a bass player,I was a little disappointed there was none but,Banks does a fine job. Its Chester Thompson on Drums,
Banks doing everything else,with really a "no name"
singer. This is another for the "GENESIS" collection.

I don't see how anyone could be critical of the vocalist, Kim Beacon. Everything about this album is wonderful. It really covers the whole Tony Banks sound. I guess the record sounds somewhere between, "Trespass" and "Duke", but with it's own unique sound. If you like anything about GENESIS, get yourself a copy of this CD. If ever there were a "deserted island disc", this is one...

For his first solo album, Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks chose to do a concept album about a man who loses a bet with God, swearing he will never fall in love in return for wisdom and fame, then losing his memory after he does fall in love. It's not a great album, but it's solid, and it still deserves an occasional listen more than 20 years later. Of the three Tony Banks albums I have, I like this one best. And it should appeal to fans of "old" Genesis, as there are several long songs that have more of the early Genesis feel than the material Genesis was recording at the time. Kim Beacon's voice isn't distinctive, but serves the material well, and Chester Thompson's drumming gives the album a more organic feel than "The Fugitive". Banks plays guitar and bass, in addition to keys--while he's an effective rhythm guitarist, there are places where a lead guitar would have made the album stronger. It's easy to imagine Genesis playing "You" or the menacing "Somebody Else's Dream". The endings of "You" and "After the Lie" include the kind of pyrotechnic synthesizer solos Banks is known for. "For a While" is an effective lost-love song. There are a couple of long, meandering instrumentals that are mildly pleasant, but hurt the overall pacing of the album. For you Genesis fans, how much you like this album will be directly proportional to how much you liked "One for the Vine".

F/Db - that's the opening chord. That's all it took to immediately and forever imprint the music of this album into the heart of my brain - and there is no getting it out. Forget all the yahoos who say Kim Beacon is blah at best. He is as much an instrument as the guitars and drums, though less important that the boards. Just read the review of the guy from Lake Charles (once you bring up all the reviews) and you have the entire synopsis of the album. I like that phrase he uses of the second half of "You"; "fury of hellfire." Also, listen to the last minute and a half of "Somebody Else's Dream," and them watch a horror movie. Which is more haunting? My money is on Tony. The musically squeamish need not listen beyond the clips on this website. For the daring only. Absolutely fantastic work, Tony!

Of all of Tony Banks' efforts, this one is my favorite, and the favorite of many "old" Genesis fans, because the way Banks plays keyboards here is pretty much unrestrained (bold lead lines and insane arpeggiating - think "In the Cage" from "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"). Banks also pulls off a couple of nice instrumentals, finding a way of coaxing realistic individual instrumental sounds off the keyboards of the day. The album's theme mirrors the story "Flowers for Algernon", about the rise to genius of an everyman, followed by his fall. The songs are crafted in Banks' admirably idiosyncratic way - who else would start off a song as a tender ballad, then suddenly in the middle turn it into a frenzied synthesizer romp ("You"). Which other lyricist would come up with word images like, "Come with me then, to the Garden of Eden; Put back our bites on the apple of the tree of knowledge, be like the beasts again."?

Banks plays guitars, too, and recruits Chester Thompson from the Genesis tours to play drums. One criticism some fans make is Banks' choice of one Kim Beacon to do vocals - I guess some folk feel his vocals are a little too strident (like someone being forced to sing from a torture rack). To me, he does not interfere with the music, which is the main thing. The most beautifully haunting album in Banks' canon; it may be the closest individual statement TB would make, as all subsequent albums seem to have an element of having to bow to some force outside himself, be it commerciality or appropriateness of music (i.e., soundtrack albums). I bought this album when it first came out in 1979, and it only sounds better today.