Smallcreep’s Day, the debut solo album by Mike Rutherford, is perhaps the greatest and most significant work the Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics bassist/guitarist has ever committed to record. It is Rutherford’s premier showcase as a composer, bandleader, and musician.
Unlike his notoriously entertaining second solo album, the appropriately titled Acting Very Strange (1982), Rutherford wisely leaves the vocal duties to another singer, a strategy Rutherford utilized to maximum effect in Mike and the Mechanics. This results in fantastic and compelling vocals, allowing Rutherford to concentrate on orchestrating a musical masterwork.
The record is a concept album based on a 1965 novel titled Mr. Smallcreep’s Day, about the trials and travails of a hapless factory worker. I can follow the concept somewhat, but I still haven’t deciphered the full impact of what is being stated here. However, I do get the sense from the grandiosity of the music that something deep and profound is unfolding.
The real marvel here is the outstanding musicianship on display.
Rutherford has assembled a fantastic band here, with Noel McCalla on vocals, Anthony
Phillips on keyboards, Morris Pert on percussion, and Simon Phillips on drums.
Of course, the highlight is Rutherford’s work on bass and guitar, the latter of
which is the most intense and voluminous Rutherford has ever recorded,
especially in comparison to his work with Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics.
Along with Andy Summers of The Police, Rutherford was one of the
most underrated guitarists of the 1980s, especially because his guitar work was
directed at serving the song rather than spotlighting his musical prowess.
But any doubt about Rutherford’s abilities is completely erased as
this album is literally brimming with his stomping bass, lyrical acoustic and
electric guitars, and blazing guitar synthesizer. If he hadn’t already done so,
Rutherford reveals himself to be a wide-ranging, diverse, superb, and accomplished
guitarist.
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