Comments for Banks, Tony, Bankstatement

Officially, this album is filed under "Bankstatement" rather than Tony Banks. Though Banks wrote all the tracks, Alistair Gordon and Jayney Klimek share vocalist duties -- and their voices are perfectly suited to this introspective material. "Bankstatement" is not as mainstream as "Still," which followed it, but it's better in almost every respect. ("Throwback," the first track, was the only Banks tune I've ever heard in public or on radio ... the Blue Jays played a few bars between innings of a playoff game at Skydome in 1989.)

This album is consistently good and superior to "Still," in spite of the wealth of talent appearing on that album. Banks has expressed some doubts about the production of "Bankstatement," in terms of vocals, drums, etc. but, while it is keyboard and drum heavy, I can''t fault the production and it is full of nice pop ideas. Overall, lyrically he comes across as a kind of alienated agnostic misogynist, but an extremely amusing one. Banks gives himself vocal duties on one central track (which works well), leaving the rest to Alistair Gordon and Jayney Klimek, who both do a great job. The bonus track, "Diamonds Aren''t So Hard to Find," is very lush and commercial sounding and the closing instrumental is just plain weird. Ian C. Thomas