John Wetton
Arkangel

“Arkangel” is a record by John Wetton released in 1997, among yet another reunion with Asia and a European tour alongside the Canadian group Saga, for whom he used to open concerts at the time, accompanied only by an acoustic guitar. Does someone not know who Wetton is? He was the bassist of Family, King Crimson (also lead vocalist), Roxy Music, Uriah Heep, UK (also lead vocalist), Wishbone Ash, and indeed Asia (also lead vocalist).

Since this record is called “Archangel,” they put the very pagan Nike of Samothrace on the cover! (Greek goddess of Victory, admirably perched at the top of one of the staircase entrances of the Louvre). Perhaps because of the wings? Mysteries of incoherence, or rather the coherent ignorance of humanity: with all the archangels, cherubim, and seraphim that popes and under-popes have commissioned sculptors to create in two thousand years of Christianity, would it have been so hard to put a beautiful piece of marble, or bronze, depicting a genuine archangel? Bah!

Wetton is a good talent, though not excellent; he has a nice baritone voice, remarkable but not epochal; plays the bass very well, without ever showing any decisive genius; he has always composed with a good work ethic… now there are hundreds of songs published under his own name on solo albums like this one and in projects he has been involved in, but none of them can be considered fantastic. He is, in short, a high-level journeyman, with a varied career that nonetheless oscillates between the not too complex and thus accessible progressive genre and pop rock, the latter accessible by definition.

He made money only in one of his ventures, namely with Asia: eight million copies sold of their debut album, for example: arguably one of the great mysteries of the record business in terms of quality/success ratio, but there it is. For the rest of his career, he has always had to settle for only moderate success, entering and exiting various groups, collaborating, and being hosted by many renowned names and colleagues, while simultaneously carrying on a respectable solo career.

In this work of his, he is assisted by fine folks, like Robert Fripp, who paints a brief but remarkable hyper-distorted guitar solo in the title track of the album, the most exciting of the batch. All other songs are always pleasant but almost never worthy of being remembered, occasionally even cloying where John decides to resolve them with simplistic choruses, especially in terms of lyrics (which always focus on love and its related memories, nostalgia, regrets, and so on).

Steve Hackett, the former Genesis member, is also a guest, who serves for a guitar solo on one track and a harmonica one (Steve is an unsuspected blues harmonica specialist) on another; but the main collaborators of our protagonist are a handful of accomplished producers capable of also playing keyboards or guitars, named Bob Marlette, John Young, Richard Palmer James, and Billy Liesegang.

Besides “Arkangel” the song, truly touching and a notch above everything else, I'm also interested in the arpeggiated “You Against The World” and the acoustic “Nothing Happens for Nothing,” the one with Hackett on harmonica. Until next time!