TRESPASS

This is in my opinion the start of Genesis as a band. Here we see the mechanations of what will come later from the band being drafted for the first time. Gabriel's voice is haunting and powerful on this album. You can hear the strife in the music and the outlook of the album is slightly grim, which for the time period is refreshing. The music, while the famous Phil Collins and Steve Hackett hadn't joined the band yet, is well written and well played.

This entire album is enjoyable from start to finish and there are no songs which stick out as bad in my opinion. Looking for Someone is a somewhat dark song that starts off slow and builds into a beautifully eerie instrumental with Peter on the flute and banks on the organ. White Mountain is also a pleasant song. Visions of Angels is a gourgeous composition which shows off the talents of Banks, Gabriel, and Rutherford very well. This song and the first are a good display of why these three stayed as core members of the band and how they dominated the sound of the music. The Knife sounds like something out of Black Sabbath, very heavy and dark. They even use vocal effects to make Peter's voice sound mechanical.

The engineering is sub par and the sound on the drums is a tad muffled along with the bass being non-existent in cretain portions of the album. This sort of dimishes the experience of what is still a very good album. I wonder if this would have been 4.5 or 5 stars barring that. I suppose we can never know.

In conclusion, this is an excellent effort by Genesis and while some may be biased by the absence of Hacket's guitar playing and Collins' drumming you should still give this album a listen. Tony Phillips and John Mayhew play excellently and contribute equally to the four stars this album deserves.