TRESPASS

I didn't hear anything from the previous album to this one until I got the first Archives box set. By then I had heard every other PG Genesis album, as well as the two with Hackett after PG left the band. The jump in quality between the first and second albums of this band is nothing short of astounding. The pastoral qualities of the material on the first album (the few songs I've heard anyway) is really the only thing that carries over to this album. The songwriting is miles ahead of everything they did before it. This is certainly not of the same caliber of the albums that would follow, but it has a charm and power to it that I always enjoy. Mayhew is no Collins, but he gets the job done, and Phillips is a fine guitarist who was quite important to the bands developing sound (he only quit because he was uncomfortable with live performances). His solo on The Knife would be copied almost note for note by Hackett (who discarded some of the lesser bits in favor of his own, much more interesting bits), showing that Phillips was probably just as good as Hackett in terms of ability.

The thing that really sets this apart from future albums is the atmosphere. While the next album certainly retains much of this atmosphere (which wouldn't really disappear until Selling England), this just seems so.........ancient, is the only word I can think of. It just brings images of Victorian England to my mind and a pastoral feel combined with their budding epic tendencies and dramatic dynamics. I think White Mountain best illustrates this atmosphere for me (The Fountain of Salamcis would be the only other song to come close to this on the next album). But all the songs, save one, are great IMO. The one song that doesn't really do a lot for me is Visions Of Angels. Perhaps it is just too happy or simple for me, I can't really say. It just seems to lack something that all the others have. It definitely has a very different atmosphere, which just doesn't do it for me. The highlights, aside from White Mountain, are definitely Stagnation and The Knife. Though The Knife would be given a much more effective treatment live by the next incarnation of the band. But the other tracks are very good as well, with Dusk being a beautiful melancholy pastoral number with a wonderful flute solo and Looking for Someone being a fairly effective combination of their style of the previous album combined with the new, more epic direction.

All in all, an excellent album that any fan of early Genesis must have. I would only suggest that this is probably not a good place to start if you have not heard any Gabriel era Genesis. For that, I would probably suggest Genesis Live.