THE FOUNTAIN BEYOND THE SUNRISE

Did you ever listen to Nursery Cryme and think "wow, I wish Genesis had made another album or two in this early style before they shifted to the polish and pomp of Foxtrot"? Well, you're in luck! Austrian outfit Kyrie Eleison's major studio album (their other release, The Blind Windows Suite, being merely an archive issue of old rehearsal tapes) is an album-length exercise in mimicing Gabriel-era Genesis in general, Nursery Cryme specifically, and the two major bookend songs on that album (The Musical Box and The Fountain of Salmacis) to be even more precise.

Lead vocalist Michael Schubert goes all-out with his Gabriel impression and is reasonably good at it, even to the point on putting on different voices in Gabriel's usual theatrical style and managing not to make this infuriatingly cringe- worthy. Gerald Krampl's keyboards are an especial highlight of the musical backing; however, the overall package suffers somewhat by rather weak recording quality, which affects the bass sounds especially badly. Still, the quality of the material here is sufficient to overcome this shortcoming, though it does stop this from being an outright masterpiece of Genesis worship.