TRESPASS

"Trespass" was the real blooming moment for Genesis. After an interesting yet clearly underdeveloped debut album that at most revealed a band of youngsters aiming to bring a craft f beauty and stylization to rock music, Gabriel, Phillips, Rutherford, Banks and new coming drummer Mayhew made Genesis take a quantum jump into the realm of prog rock in order to deliver this beautiful album "Trespass". Sure it bears serious problems at the sound engineering department (I mean, the original mix), and it also fails to establish a more convincing pattern of powerful rock sounds through the artsy ambitions so habitual in the genre. There is yet another minus I find in this album, which is the lack of a softer handling of transitions among various motifs in some particular moments (a problem that was evidently managed better from the follow-up "Nursery Cryme" and eventually perfected in "Foxtrot"). And what about Mayhew's drumming style, which has been subject of retrospective criticism even by a Genesis veteran in some interviews? Well, I think that it is fine per se, but definitely there was a certain abuse of rolls and ornaments, which in turn reveals an underdeveloped conceptual clarification about the rhythm section's role in the band's framework (compare it to the sort of communication between Giles and Lake in KC's debut or between Sinclair and Coughlan in Caravan's. that's real clarification). Anyway, in general, this is beautiful musical work that in many places reveals the very essence of the band's autumnal side (quite prevalent in their 70s albums despite the fact that the guy became rockier right there from the "Nursery Cryme" days). 'Looking for Someone' brings a delightful set of epic passages, some subtle and other more explicitness, with a Gabriel that already shows his trademark as a dramatic teller of stories and emotions. The epic factor gets more vital in 'White Mountain', despite the fact that the electric guitar is less prominent in favor of multiple 12-string guitars: the main motif is developed with a majesty that stays pastoral and dynamic concurrently. This song encapsulates perfectly the autumnal aspect of Genesis that I was referring to earlier in this review. And maybe we can tell that this is the birth of the definitive 12-string guitar sound. 'Visions of Angels' takes a turn into a more romantic realm without loosing the epic edge - Banks brings the best of his symphonic vision for the enhancement of this Phillips-penned song. 'Stagnation' is very lyrical, with much room for passages on 3 12-string guitars, plus an organ solo and a bombastic closing section based on a lovely motif's reiteration. 'Dusk' is a typical Ant Phillips bucolic ballad, with heavy Renaissance undertones: the album does not get more autumnal than this. 'The Knife' is the only real rocker in the album, but what a rocker it is. You can describe this album as a peculiarly successful attempt at combining early King Crimson and Hendrix-like psychedelic rock. The message of civil war and the circle of dishonest politics meets an engaging expression in this dramatic rocker that can sound urgent and menacing at the same time, even during the constrained interlude that precedes sounds of street mayhem. This experiment went awesome, and it clearly generated a fund of enthusiasm for future rockers in successive albums. Not a masterpiece to my ears, but definitely an undisputed gem that states the birth of a prog hero of all times.