Wind & Wuthering (1976)

Artist: Genesis
Release Year: 1976

Rating: 4/10

Track Listing: 1) Eleventh Earl of Mar; 2) One for the Vine; 3) Your Own Special Way; 4) Wot Gorilla; 5) All in a Mouse's Night; 6) Blood on the Rooftops; 7) Unquiet Slumber for the Sleepers; 8) In That Quiet Earth; 9) Afterglow.

I sure am glad I had a nice strong cup of coffee handy while I was listening to this thing again, because this album really does sound like its cover art, and that's a bad thing.  The whole record is like a mass of grey mist that coalesced perfectly within the chalk outline of the corpse of classic prog, and was posthumously declared in some dumb posh accent to be "very classy and mature".  No, I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that it fits.  So much of this album is ridden with maddening synths and cloying production that I struggle to get through it in its entirety.  Steve Hackett is buried in the mix, leaving Tony Banks to drench us in…well, in whatever his endless synth tangents leave behind.

The opener "Eleventh Earl of Mar" is a solid piece that alternates between rocking, with some exciting guitar work from Hackett, and ballad, with plaintive keys from Tony, while serving as a reaffirmation of Phil Collins' place as "lead drummer".  In fact, it sounds a lot like it could've been on Lamb, so that's nice.  And I almost don't care how sappy and saccharine the "Your Own Special Way" is when it provides a breath of air from the thick shroud of sedative gas that is this album-- plus, I love the contrast between the baroque waltzing verses and the hymn-like revelation of the chorus.  

But.  Everything else is a drone of synths, presented with such a theatrical seriousness, even when the lyrics are ostensibly humorous (e.g., "Mouse's Night"); yet, the aggressive tiredness of this prescription-strength downer just can't be shaken off.  Sure, there's the acoustic guitar and oboe at the start of "Blood on the Rooftops", which are promising, but then the song refuses to break us from the coma.  Just the same grey, rainy, sleepy character that plagues the entire disc-- hell, one character even says he hates staying up late and would rather have some tea!  What a bore.

The main problem, I think, is that some of these songs sound like they were written as 3- to 4-minute pop tracks, and were then extended to "prog length" after the fact.  For instance, I do like the heartfelt beginning of "One for the Vine", with the classical piano illustrating the story and all, but then the thing just meanders around and around with no real direction, which means I feel every bit of those ten minutes.  The slog from track 7 onward is little better.  

Most of this album blows.  How it continues to be heaped with praise is far beyond my understanding.