(RockAndMetal.com) (06/21/04)

By Michael Bennett

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - The new RAY WILSON album, "The Next Best Thing" is going to be released worldwide on June 28th.

In August, he will then perform new material at the Edinburgh Festival, followed by a tour of Europe with his full band in October.

Some musicians' careers are running straight just like a highway in Texas. Others however, seem to describe a circle.

And still others - to which Ray Wilson's biography belongs - are similar to a rollercoaster trip, regarding the intensity of ups and downs:

From the highest top it went fast down, and then back up to the top, up into the stratosphere of rock music with all its hits.

What remains as a kind of realization after such a hot and cold bath of emotions?

A brilliant album encapsulated in "The Next Best Thing" - twelve passionate songs blurring the line between rock and folk, an absolute declaration of belief in the sheer power of music.

No - it cannot be avoided that the 36-year-old Scotsman, born in the medieval fairy town of Edinburgh, is asked about the part of his career when he played with Genesis.

Whatever Ray Wilson may do in musical terms in the future, he will never shake off the brief time he spent with that legendary band.

But does he want to do that anyway? In the song 'The Actor' from "The Next Best Thing," Wilson gives some insight into his experience with the British supergroup, an experience that he has overcome but not forgotten.

In the autobiographical song, he sings of how he felt after the 1997 Genesis album "Calling All Stations," the subsequent world tour, up until that moment when the last curtain fell and the multi-platinum group split up and left Ray Wilson behind, just as he was getting used to that tremendous dimension.

"I felt like an actor who had lost his audience," he says. In a certain way this is a typical statement for Wilson.

A sentence just like his music. It includes melancholy, thoughtfulness, and ruthless honesty, but also the willingness to open oneself, to overcome things, and to go through -- in the good old tradition of the singer/songwriter -- a therapy for oneself.

Today he knows that his time with Genesis was a kind of privilege, for which he was envied by thousands of gifted singers. And even more, it was a kind of elite schooling.

Wilson says: "I learned a lot of things about songwriting then. For example, I wanted to go on a melodious voyage with my voice on "The Next Best Thing." The way I'm approaching certain songs is similar to the methods used with Genesis."

One can hear that, at least in titles such as 'The Fool in Me,' 'Adolescent Breakdown' or 'Sometimes.'

Here, powerful keyboard chords are meeting with hymnal melodies and song lyrics rich in metaphors.

And the nice thing is Ray Wilson succeeds -- together with a line-up of extraordinary musicians (amongst others ex-Genesis drummer Nir Z, as well as Gun And Fish sideman Irvin Duguid on keyboards) -- to wrap lavish arrangements in a modern, well-made sound package.

And with this trick the singer with his charismatic voice again succeeds when doing 'Inside' - Ray Wilson's first top hit from the times when he fronted the Scottish grunge band Stiltskin.

About ten years ago, that song -- which was also used as a jingle for Levi's jeans commercials -- hit number 1 on the UK charts, and in almost all European charts it reached high positions.

"People just can't get enough of that song," Wilson says. He must know, because for many years 'Inside' has remained a regular number on the setlists for his live shows.

"The Next Best Thing," which was produced by Ray Wilson himself in his "Jaggy Thorn" studio, shows Wilson's quiet and introverted side, too.

With other titles such as 'Ever The Reason,' and 'How High,' Wilson picks up the thread he had so artistically spun on his last album "Change."

So "The Next Best Thing" can be seen as a calling card of sorts for the exceptional Scottish artist.

But Wilson doesn't consider the album as a kind of provisional appraisal of his varied career.

"For me it's a natural process, a steady progression, in which electric guitars and harsher sounds come more to the forefront right now than before."

Copyright 2003-2010 Internet Music Media. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without requested permission.

---

[ Top ]