Review Summary: This isn’t a popular album amongst many prog fans. But it isn’t as bad as that.
“The Fugitive” is the second solo studio album of Tony Banks that was released in 1983. The line up on the album is Tony Banks, Daryl Stuermer, Mo Foster, Tony Beard, Steve Gadd and Andy Duncan.
Tony Banks is a British composer, pianist and keyboardist who became most known in the world of progressive rock music especially because he was one of the founding members of Genesis, with Peter Gabriel and Mike Rutherford. Along with Rutherford he was the only band’s member that stayed in the group throughout their entire musical history.
Banks was trained in classical piano, and what many of us don’t know is that he was also a self-taught person in terms of learning to play guitar. So, we can even say that he’s also a guitarist. Having studied at Charterhouse School in the 60’s he met Gabriel. Along with Chris Stewart both formed a band named The Garden Wall, which was merged with a band called Anon which included Rutherford and Anthony Phillips. The final result of that was a group called Genesis.
Like what happened on their debut album, “A Curious Feeling”, on “The Fugitive”, Banks also wrote all the tracks and invited several musicians to participate on it. Shortly, we can resume the main differences from his debut album to three. First, he doesn’t invite a vocalist to sing on the album, as happened with his previous work, and so, this is his first and only full length album where Banks sings all the songs. Second, he decided not to play guitar on the album and for that job he invited Daryl Stuermer, an American musician that he knew very well, because he played guitar and bass for Genesis during the live shows of the group. Finally, he invited three drummers instead of Chester Thompson, the American drummer who usually played drums during the live shows of Genesis, replacing Phil Collins when he sang on the live shows. Curiously he decided to use the mechanical drumming, instead of the use of traditional drums.
So, “The Fugitive” has nothing to do with his previous debut studio album “A Curious Feeling”. His debut is essentially a symphonic progressive rock album, almost in the same vein of a Genesis’ classic album, while “The Fugitive” isn’t a progressive album, and has nothing to do with the music of Genesis, until that moment. In the second place, “A Curious Feeling” is a conceptual album and the songs are based on a story of a book where all the songs are somehow linked together, while on “The Fugitive” we have a set of songs unconnected with nothing to do with each other and where the lyrics aren’t about stories, myths and legends. In the third place, Banks composed the songs on “The Fugitive” to his voice and, as we all know, and despite having a very nice voice, he was never a real vocalist, indeed. In the fourth place “The Fugitive” isn’t an album easily identifiable as a keyboardist album because there aren’t really on the album any great keyboard solos and the sound of the synthesizers sound rather mechanical. In the fifth place, Banks became very disappointed with the poor reception of “A Curious Feeling”. Comparing the reception of his album with both albums of his colleagues of Genesis, his album did not reach the success that Rutherford and Collins had with “Smallcreep’s Day” and “Face Value” released in 1980 and 1981 respectively. The last but not the least, perhaps fashioned by the new wave style, he decided to make an album lighter and essentially with many pop characteristics.
So, due to all I said before, “The Fugitive” is a very strange album. He decided to move further away from his Genesis’ progressive roots and the band’s melodic pop period too. “The Fugitive” has a rather pleasant catchy sound, but without any kind of prog visions. “The Fugitive” is, ultimately, a bit disappointing album abandoning the instrumental dexterity and panache that we had come to expect from Banks in favour of what is mostly a European synth-pop meets bland transatlantic AOR mishmash. I also think lyrics were never Banks’ strongest trait, which is particularly evident here. Banks followed “The Fugitive” with another disappointing stab at mainstream pop-rock, namely “Bankstatement”.
Conclusion: “The Fugitive” marks, in my humble opinion, the first time that Banks clearly found his own very unique musical style, as a solo artist. Despite some fairly sophisticated songs, the album provides a much stronger pop feeling than demonstrated on their previous solo debut studio album “A Curious Feeling”. “The Fugitive” dramatically sets Banks’ solo work apart from his work with Genesis, and in many aspects, it’s a light years away from his previous solo studio album. It’s unquestionably not for everyone. It also represents, possibly, the end of hope that Banks, as a solo artist, followed the same progressive path followed by Hackett. Both always were my favourite Genesis’ members. However and despite everything I said before, I like “The Fugitive”. This is, in my humble opinion, a good album, and I sincerely think that Banks made a very honest and interesting musical effort to create this album. I know very well that “The Fugitive” isn’t a progressive album, but, for me, it’s a very well balanced album with a good handful of songs.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
