TRESPASS

After their inauspicious "what we did in the holidays" debut Genesis got serious with their follow up.This is effectively the first "real" Genesis album.They had not really found their sound yet or at very least they were experimenting with different styles and instrumentations.The opening track "Looking For Someone" is almost like a soul number especially with Gabriel's vocals.It is actually a really good song with plenty of instrumental development with what would shortly become a typical dramatic conclusion."Visions Of Angels" is really just a pop-rock number which could easily have come off the debut although the instrumentation is a lot fuller I suspect on this album that had it appeared earlier. "Stagnation" is the first story-songs a style Genesis would continue to develop whereby the actual composition as well as instrumentation would continually change so the end would be very different from the beginning.In this case the song starts as a paired twelve string led melody and ends with a full band sound- lots of grandiose pianos and flutes added to the mix.Although they had not fully developed their sound at this stage it is still a highly sophisticated brew. The best known track by far and one which they continued to play even as late as the Duke tour ten years later is "The Knife".For an album largely consisting of gentle pastoral sounds this song really is astonishingly heavy with big fat hammond organ chords and a driving rhythm. Again the band were still trying out different sounds and this track was inspired by the Nice.A real classic slice of Heavy Prog rock but a style they never really returned to. The production is actually quite excellent and I suspect some fans might even prefer the sound to the following "Nursery Cryme" with its attendant weirdness.I think the electric guitar playing in particular on the opening and closing tracks is more conventional sounding compared to the more elaborate and experimental sounds Steve Hackett conjured up on subsequent albums.In Fact the whole album has a live-in-the-studio feel to it (probably because it was effectively recorded that way) which is part of its charm.

Although this album will ever vie for top place on my list of favourite Genesis albums it definitely is a minor Classic

4stars

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