Strictly Inc.
Strictly Inc.

Friends, Debaserians, fellow citizens, lend me your ears…

I'll start from afar to talk about this album from '95 which, despite the "cover name," is in every respect a solo album by Tony Banks (all the music and almost all the lyrics are his); a CD that I find myself listening to for the first time a dozen years after its release, which, given the nickname I've chosen, may seem quite peculiar…

Look: here is where C's dagger has penetrated.

The fact is, I'm one of the many for whom “Abacab” arrived like a backstabbing dagger straight into the spine and one of the many who initially got into the false belief that the almost exclusive perpetrator of that devastating drift was Phil Collins (stress produced by the snare drum on the neural synapses?). Then came Acting Very Strange by Rutherford and The Fugitive by Banks and I had to resign myself to the fact that the neural explosion, with consequent musical barbarization, was evidently anything but an isolated phenomenon.

And there was B's beloved dagger thrust; and when he pulled out that cursed steel from that gap, behold, see how the blood rushed out of the house to see if it had been B, or not, who had so rudely knocked at his door.

Indeed, The Fugitive, who could have believed that behind certain tunes and arrangements, which would have found a more suitable place in a Commodore 64 video game, there was him, Banks, that Tony Banks who had played such a large part in shaping some milestones of '70s music? And so, a dozen years after its release, it is with the hopeful serenity of “a fly waiting for a windshield on the highway” (to paraphrase "our own" from so many, many years ago) that I prepare to listen to this Strictly Inc., in which the collaborations of other artists, typical in Banks' solo works, are reduced to the essential. For the drums, Tony relies on John Robinson, a sort of ever-present drummer, who has collaborated in the past with dozens of artists, including George Benson, Steve Winwood, Lionel Richie, Seal, Michael Jackson, to name but a few. He grants only four tracks to the bass of Nathan East, also a solid professional, who has worked alongside, among others, Anita Baker, Eric Clapton, Whitney Houston, and Quincy Jones, and just a couple of tracks to Daryl Stuermer's guitar, a faithful presence with Genesis in the post-Hackett concert era. The voice is that of Jack Hues, former Wang Chung; yes, those same ones from the early '80s dance-hit Dance Hall Days…

I never gave much importance to omens; and yet now they prove to frighten me

And the opening does nothing but confirm such omens: “Don't Turn Your Back On Me” is the track most akin to the sounds of “The Fugitive” and if the goal was to immediately discourage the more skeptical listeners, there is no doubt that it was fully achieved. However, in these years we have had to swallow, despite ourselves, much worse, so we persist, and our stubbornness is only marginally rewarded by the eight subsequent tracks. We thus encounter (more or less in order of personal preference): the highlight of the batch (The Serpent Said) which alternates musical phrases of vehement drama with a light and relaxed chorus, graced with a nice keyboard solo; the romantic and all in all acceptable Walls Of Sound, Never Let Me Know, and A Piece Of You; a couple of more carefree tracks in a vaguely Mike & The Mechanics style (Only Seventeen and Charity Balls: it's a pity that in both the freshness of the catchy verse theme collapses into an uninspired chorus); a couple of decidedly ugly tracks (Something To Live For and Strictly Incognito).

The evil that men do lives after them, while their good is oft interred with their bones…

As the last notes of the ninth track finally fade, which (for some unclear self-destructive logic) also gives the name to the whole work, we are then already ready to bury this album forever in the endless depths of oblivion, when the first notes of “An Island In The Darkness”, the over 17-minute suite that concludes the album, begin to resonate in the air. And already from those first, few notes entrusted to the electric piano (which vaguely recall the introduction of From The Undertow in A Curious Feeling) it is immediately clear that we have been projected into a different world, a world where the deepest strings of the soul are gently caressed, or at most expertly plucked, never struck without mercy. It is thus the piano that creates an atmosphere of magical anticipation, outlining only some of the following themes, until the appearance of the drum machine which lightly accompanies a sort of voice and synth duet of poignant and melancholic beauty. And just as the track seems to traverse calmly the tranquil paths of a romantic dream, drums and keyboards burst vehemently, imposing an exhilarating crescendo that finds its natural rest in the piano's reprise which recalls, reworks, and masterfully distorts some of the previous themes. Then again, a splendid crescendo, drawn by the voice (perhaps not entirely at ease in excursions to the highest peaks), on which Stuermer’s guitar reinserts the synth solo theme from the initial singing, embellishes around it, and then gently settles, leaving the stage open to the piano, which concludes, circularly and admirably, this authentic musical jewel, almost alien to the rest of the album, an island where it is beautiful to reach after a long sail in the dark.

Friends, Debaserians, fellow citizens, lend me your ears…

just about twenty minutes, no more. And this time… the windshield can wait.

Notes. The italicized quotes are taken (and freely reworked) from Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, BUR edition, trans. by G. Baldini. The rating refers solely to "An Island In The Darkness" (which can be listened to in its full, good-quality version at the following link on the www.progarchives.com site); the rest of the album barely reaches adequacy.