The very first thing you notice about Invisible Touch is just how poppy it is. Which isn’t too surprising–the two records before it had some great pop numbers with prog flares thrown in to keep things interesting, like Abacab’s great No Reply At All or the Home by the Sea suite from Genesis, reflective of what groups like The Police and Talk Talk were doing around the same time on Ghost in the Machine and The Colour of Spring (which are both masterpieces).

Around the same time, Phil Collins was fostering what would become one of the most successful solo careers of all time, eventually reaching the level of musicians name dropped on 30 Rock (Tracy: I’m making you a mixtape. Do you like Phil Collins? Jack: I have two ears and a heart, don’t I?). And until Invisible Touch, Genesis and Collins’ solo material had enough of a separation between the two to tell the records apart, but the line seems to blur here.

Well, except for the fact that it’s not quite as good as either Collins’ heartfelt synthpop or Genesis’ masterful art rock (despite what Patrick Bateman says). There are spurts of greatness here and there, like the proggy midsection of Tonight, Tonight, Tonight. But unfortunately, most of the album sounds like Land of Confusion,a hooky radio-rock song that comes off as beneath their ability–especially with the poorly produced bridge that violently jerks you out of the groove the synthesized bass drums (note: being freed from that groove is not a bad thing). In Too Deep fails to emote as effectively as Collins’ solo ballads, achieving new levels of 80s cheese pop if nothing else. Despite sounding terribly dated, much of the album comes off as either uninspired or obnoxious, which is not a hat that Genesis wears very well. Where the two records before this keep drawing me back, this one is repelling me away.