This is an album of piano duets of the music of the 70s progressive rock masters, Genesis. However, it is NOT a `tribute’ album. ‘Tribute’ albums are often Velveeta-smothered cheeseballs, sometimes just plain old elevator music. Other times they’re nothing more than limp attempts – with little or imagination – at marketing tools for aspiring prog bands.

But not the music of Guddal and Matte.

First, the music has all the passion of the original music, and then some. You can feel the love that Guddal and Matte have for the music of Genesis, and this passion is deeply infused into these recordings.

The concept of dual pianos is great, creating a synergy with different melody lines, and allowing for great flourishes and nuances. The whole is indeed greater than the sum of the parts.

Further, their arrangements truly reveal the brilliance and composing genius of Banks/Collins/Gabrial/Hackett/Rutherford. The uninitiated would swear they’re listening to compositions by giants of classical music such as Gershwin or Debussy.

The song choices are not obvious, but rather interesting and daring. It’s so wonderful to see an underrated Genesis masterpiece “Eleventh Earl of Mar” receiving such a superb rendition. Seemingly odd choices like “Me and Sarah Jane” – never a strong track in my opinion – are heard from new, more satisfying perspectives. Indeed, one could say some of these arrangement exceed the original Genesis recordings.

Bravo to Mssrs. Guddal and Matte. Music lovers of all kinds are fortunate they’ve applied their considerable virtuosity to the great library of Genesis, and created wonderful, passionate, timeless interpretations of compositions that have stood the test of time.

Here’s looking forward to Volume 3, and hopefully a series on the music of the other prog masters, Yes.

Rating: 5 / 5