Mike + The Mechanics

Mike Rutherford put together a strong line-up to deliver the debut, self-titled, Mike + The Mechanics album. As well as former Sad Cafe (the classic Everyday Hurts) frontman Paul Young and former Ace (How Long) & Squeeze (Tempted) member Paul Carrack, he chose two established touring band members to compliment the line-up.  Drummer Peter Van Hooke had played on six Van Morrison albums and played in Van's touring band, and keyboardist Adrian Lee had toured with Cliff Richard before joining Toyah Wilcox in her band, where he would also co-write some of her hits including "Thunder In The Mountains". Add to that a strong set of songwriters including Christopher Neil, BA Robertson and Rutherford's two Genesis cohorts, Banks and Collins, and everything was set for a strong debut.

The creative and original songwriting produced a superbly coherent set of tracks which drew excellent performances from all of the band members, who complemented each other beautifully. There are the obviously well known 'big hits' - "Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)", about a time traveler trying to contact his family to warn them of impending doom, and "All I Need Is A Miracle" a song Rutherford & Neil had written about maintaining a positive attitude towards life...Mike Rutherford later admitted, "I don't do that very often". The only other single taken from the album was "Taken In", a song about gullibility, betrayal and how we repeat those mistakes time and time again. Sounds much more like the sort of attitude Mike Rutherford might normally have had!

                                                                    Side One

A1 Silent Running 6:10

A2 All I Need Is A Miracle 4:10

A3 Par Avion 3:36

A4 Hanging By A Thread 4:40

Side Two

B1 I Get The Feeling 4:27

B2 Take The Reins 4:18

B3 You Are The One 3:41

B4 A Call To Arms 4:38

B5 Taken In 4:17

"I Get The Feeling" swings along on an infectious groove. "A Call To Arms" is structured more along the lines of a Genesis track (not a surprise as this track credits his Genesis band mates with a co-writing credit). The vastly underrated "Par Avion" is a beautiful, lazy almost, piece of forlorn love sung beautifully by guest singer John Kirby. Many who have reviewed this album over the years have approached it by classifying it as a poor Progressive Rock album because of Rutherford's affiliation with Genesis. When approached as a piece of pure eighties pop/rock it holds its own admirably with that type of music and is far better than most of that ilk. Although their follow up album "The Living Years", released in 1988, sold far more, mainly on the strength of the title track being a massive worldwide hit, this first album was a far more dependable and accomplished set of tracks.

Taken In

Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)

All I Need Is A Miracle