TRESPASS

Stagnation and The Knife can't make up for what is clearly a mixed-bag of a transition album, while I do like this album and recognize how important it is for the band and how much of an improvement the album is over its predecessor, I still can't help but feel that this is an uneven and poorly crafted album that offers some wonderful songs but has a few real slogs.

The album begins with the largely unexciting opener (Looking For Someone), vocally this has never sat quite right with me but instrumentally there is the odd moment that is extremely strong 3/5.

From this the album goes into what I feel is the sleeper song (White Mountain) which transitions wonderfully from exciting moments to some extremely gorgeous atmospheric moments, a very strong track that is often overlooked in Genesis' timeline 4/5.

Visions of Angels is a pretty and relaxed song that overstays it's welcome after a while. The song is too poppy for my tastes and the lack of musical development doesn't justify the 7 minute length of the song. This song is also frustrating because it feels like a bit of a tease, just when it feels like it's about to get into something exciting and refreshing it pulls back into nice sounding melodies again that offer little else 2/5.

The next song (Stagnation) however is a real gem however, did I say that White Mountain was the sleeper song on this album? Maybe this album has two sleeper songs. In this song we see some thoughtful lyrics, a well crafted song that effortlessly glides between its many themes and some of the most original and exciting music that Genesis has created, certainly the most amazing song thus far in their career 5/5.

The next song (Dusk) is perhaps the low point of the record however, feeling tacked on and out of place with the rest of the music there is little symphony, little excitement... A boring ballad that offers nothing to the album, it's pleasant I suppose but a nice glass of wine is pleasant but I wouldn't call it a masterpiece of progressive rock 2/5.

The final song (The Knife) picks things back up again however, Genesis' show closer early on and with good reason, this is a song that really gets the energy flowing, lots of mood changes and varying styles throughout to keep the listener on their toes, a great end to the album 4/5.

Overall 3/5 stars.