Nick D’Virgilio has played drums for Genesis, Tears For Fears, Fates Warning, Frost*, and Mike Keneally. He made 10 albums with Spock’s Beard, the first 6 as drummer and the next 4 as drummer/lead vocalist. He became a member of his current band Big Big Train in 2007.
This is no mere note-for-note replica. To celebrate the album’s 50th anniversary, this reissued and newly remixed and remastered edition offers a fresh, vibrant, and surprising perspective. Stripping away some of the original’s keyboard dominance, D’Virgilio and his band infuse the material with a dazzling array of styles—from Dixieland jazz and country-tinged bluegrass to big-band brass, lending a new “soulful” groove to the prog rock classic.
Nick Tate Prog Report: “Stitching the whole thing together are D’Virgilio’s boyish, muscular vocals, which in places seem better suited to Rael’s surrealistic coming-of-age travels than Gabriel’s ancient-mariner croon. He also brings a remarkable versatility to his vocal delivery, alternating between high theatricality and singer-songwriter intimacy to emphasize the dynamic range of these classic tracks. (…) But you have to give D’Virgilio and Hornsby credit for attempting to do more than merely ape “The Lamb,” while not straying so far off course that the effort becomes laughable or irrelevant. With the release of the new deluxe reissue of the original album and other tributes released this year, here’s yet another way to experience this classic masterwork, with some surprising and celebratory new twists.”
