The Watch - Vacuum - 2004
intro
Third album released by this Italian band that make its debut under the name The Night Watch with the album “Twilight” (97) shorting the name for the second album “Ghost” (01).
If you already know this band – and even the band itself – won´t be surprised if I say that The Watch is the best classic Genesis “impersonator band”. Led by the Italian Gabriel, Simone Rossetti (vocals, flute), Ettore Salati (acoustic and electric guitars, bass pedals, 12 string guitars), Roberto Leoni (drums and percussion), Marco Schermbri (bass, electric and acoustic guitars) and Sergio Tagglioni (piano, organ, Moog, Mellotron) give eight new tracks with the stamp of Banks and Co. in the early days of “Trespass”, “Nursery Crime”, “Foxtrot” and “Selling England by the Pound”.
review
Nowadays there are lots of Genesis impersonators… from Citizen Cain to Metaphor. I´m not talking about bands that “sounds like Genesis” but about bands that takes the style of Genesis with a cheek as happened (and still happens) with bands like Starcastle or Alaska (Yes), Salem (Jethro Tull), La Tulipe Noire (Marillion), or dozens of bands a la Rush. Imagine for a moment that you´re still hungry for early Genesis music and you want to listen to new material of your favorite band. The solution is very easy.. buy any album of The Watch and you´ll be happy… as if by magic, your speakers will be playing Peter Gabriel´s voice, Hackett´s guitars, and Banks´ moog under new melodies.
I use to be very cruel with these kind of bands because, under my point of view, distort progressive rock concept itself, but I must admit that The Watch is an extremely talented band and “Vacuum” has a wonderful sound, as if classic Genesis use actual technology in order to record albums.
Perhaps some Genesis die-hard fans will hate these bands, as well as some true-prog's, but I´m sure that most of Genesis lovers will appreciate The Watch and they can go on enjoying a style that has been vindicated over and over again, but few times explicitly hommaged.
conclusion
Although there´s no originality, but I must stick up for The Watch, the quality of sound, the category of arrangements, and those tracks that take us to closed musical boxes.
By the way, the cover is very similar to Beard´s “Beware of Darkness” and the name is misspelled in the cover.