Beekstraat 1 - B-2640 Mortsel - Belgium

PHENOMENA: The Complete Works

Release

Style

62:48 / 51:00 / 51:16

ESM142

Something fishy going on here… A boxed release of all three PHENOMENA albums should be a celebration of this remarkable project, but it is overshadowed by a rather nasty dispute between project creator, coordinator, writer and producer Tom Galley, and Mervyn Spence, who acquired the rights to PHENOMENA in the early 90’s. The obvious downplaying of Tom Galley’s role in Spence’s liner notes and on the website is a rather sad manifestation of that.

Anyway, PHENOMENA started way back in 1982 with some demos. The first album was finally released in 1985 -  a fantastic melodic rock album with a rather complex SF concept about a telephatic experiment gone wrong. The idea was to expand the concept in a film, but this never came to be. Still, the project never died, and two more albums were released. These three PHENOMENA albums are now presented in a 3cd box, with quite a few bonus tracks.

Phenomena (1985) is for me one of the most perfect pieces of melodic rock ever recorded. For this album, Tom Galley gathered a host of well-known musicians, a.o. his brother Mel, Cozy Powell, Neil Murray, Don Airey, John Thomas, Richard Bailey and Ted McCenna. All lead vocals were provided by none other than Glenn Hughes, in a surprisingly restrained performance – one of the best of his career in my opinion. The mysterious quality of the songs, the excellent musicianship and Hughes’ subtle, emotional vocals more than made up for the rather average production. On this re-release, there are 5 bonus tracks: ‘Assassins Of The Night’ and ‘Phoenix Rising’ are from the very first PHENOMENA rehearsals way back in 1982, performed by the then-TRAPEZE members. ‘Coming Back Strong’ is in fact not a PHENOMENA song at all, but a track written and demoed for TRAPEZE, before Mel Galley joined WHITESNAKE and took the song with him (it appeared, with new lyrics, as ‘Gambler’ on Slide It In). Then there’s a rather redundant re-recording of ‘Still The Night’ and ‘Karma’ is a teaser for the soon-to-be-released fourth PHENOMENA album.

Glenn Hughes returned for Phenomena II: Dream Runner (1987), but this time he had to share lead vocals with John Wetton, Max Bacon and the late Ray Gillen (who, incidentally, had just replaced Hughes in BLACK SABBATH). Other returning musicians were Mel Galley, Neil Murray, Richard Bailey, John Thomas, plus THIN LIZZY’s Scott Gorham, Michael Sturgis, Leif Johansen, Toshihiro Niimi and Kyoji Yamamoto (both from BOWWOW). Another great album, with hardly any flaws. This record even spawned a hit single, ‘Did It All For Love’ (sung by Wetton). Bonus tracks are a re-recording of ‘Did It All For Love’ and another new song, ‘Forever’.

Phenomena III: Inner Vision (1992) wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was a fine AOR album, with great songs like ‘Rock House’, ‘Banzi’ and ‘Rock My Soul’. Still, it did pale a bit in comparison to its predecessors. This time, Keith Murrell (MAMA’S BOYS) did all lead vocals. The cast of musicians was a lot slimmer: Scott Gorham, Leif Johansen and Michael Sturgis, but the guest performance of QUEEN’s Brian May was an interesting bonus. Another re-recording (‘No Retreat, No Surrender’) and a new song (‘Scalpel & Heart’) complete the box.

2007 will bring a new PHENOMENA album (A Room With No Windows), there might be a couple of live performances and there are even talks of a stage production. Sadly, Tom Galley is no longer involved in the project, which is quite sad, really, since for me, Tom Galley IS and has always been PHENOMENA. The new album will be PHENOMENA in name only, I’m afraid.

The good news is that Tom Galley himself is back in action as well. Last year, he released the excellent Psycho Fantasy (which, for promotional reasons, was marketed as a PHENOMENA record), and he is already working on a new album. Something to look forward then…

 

Musicians

Website in order to promote progressive rock to a broader audience in Flanders but also in the entire world. No part from this website may be used in any other publication whether in print or on the world wide web without the editor's consent - all material is exclusive to Prog-Nose and copyright protected.

Last updated: 13 januari 2007 .
All rights reserved. Copyright © Prog-Nose 30:05:2001.