FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION

This isn't a terrible record. Whenever it gets played, I don't put my hands over my ears and scream "Mommy! please make it stop!" Such ringing endorsements, however, hardly earn it a third star in my book.

Because of this album, I placed "early Genesis" on the backburner for years. So I hope you will forgive me if I don't allow the band's subsequent works to award bonus (or concession) points to "From Genesis to Revelation".

Here is how it happened. Because I was only familiar with the commercial Genesis music of the 1980s, everyone kept telling me "You simply must check out early Genesis". I finally acquiesced when one day at the record store I saw a copy of the album "From Genesis to Revelation".

Upon placing the needle on the LP, I couldn't believe my ears. This was what everyone was ranting and raving about??? It sounded like folk era Bee Gees. Well it sounded more like somewhat 'watered down' folk era Bee Gees to be brutally honest. (Early Bee Gees music was actually quite professional produced folk-pop. This was somewhat amateurish in comparison). I incredulously double-checked the album cover to see if perhaps I had purchased an album by some local band that also had used the name Genesis. Nope. This was "the" real Genesis of old. I immediately filed "early Genesis" into the "not for me" category.

I present this esperience as a "case study" to illustrate what I believe you really already know deep within your "heart of hearts". That - musically speaking - prog fans would not pursue and purchase this record were it not for their interest in Genesis based upon their subsequent output.

Later, once the age of internet radio brought a wider range of "try before you buy" prog music to my ears, I was provided the opportunity to hear 70's era Genesis and to hear the difference! And what a difference it is! But, had my exposure to "early Genesis" been left to the content of this album, I would never have sought out to learn or hear more.

That doesn't make this album worthless, however. This record is of interest from the perspective of early band history. And even were it not for prog music history's sake, fans and collectors of Genesis would still want to hear this debut because of how it, by way of contrast, makes the impact of the band's follow up albums all the more powerful.

But let's not kid ourselves. "From Genesis to Revelation" is for fans and collectors only. It is a 2 star album by a band that would soon shake the progressive rock world with a dramatic quantum leap forward on their very next album.