FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION

The opening track, "Where The Sour Turns To Sweet", typically reminds me of a 60's pop song. You can already hear the vocal ability of Peter Gabriel. Nice piano sequence. I'm not much of a brass man, so don't care much for the trumpet sections.....

In The Beginning, the second track, let me sit up a little straighter and listen more intently. Still a pop song, but more enjoyable.

Track 3 has a nice piano intro, but this quickly gets replaced by some strings and the voice of Peter Gabriel. After the previous track this came as a bit of a surprise as I expected the album to start picking up at this point. I'm sitting back in my chair again. The words: "Once upon a time there was confusion, disappointment, fear and disillusion" are racing through my mind......

The Serpent, when it actually starts, equals the attention received by Track 2. I like this track as it's more rock orientated than the previous tracks. Nice guitar riff.

Am I Very Wrong' started similar in vocal style than Fireside Song, but generally this song is more melodic, Peter Gabriel vocals, nice, almost "driven" piano. Overall the best song thus far, but I must add that the chorus section disappointed a bit. Still like the song though.

Track six comes in the form of "In The Wilderness". Peter Gabriel sounds different on this track. Wonder what the song would sound like without the string section? Good pop song in my opinion. Three reasonable songs in a row, can we hope for four?

On "The Conqueror", the vocals sound different, like on the previous track. Clearly it shows that Peter Gabriel has more than one vocal tone.... Enjoyable track. At this point I started feeling a bit better about the album. Four in a row..... :-)

Not much difference between Fireside Song and In Hiding. Follows the same vocal style with string section. Next comes "One Day" and while a little more upbeat features those trumpets again, sorry. Still a likeable song though. "Window" follows along similar lines than Tracks 3 & 8. More acoustic. Listenable.

After "The Conqueror" there's not been much to write home about and the low point of the album surely comes with "In Limbo". The Bee Gees like "Silent Sun" follows, and while it's a nice pop song, I must say that the first half of this album is the better half. The closure, "A Place To Call My Own" is just that, closure!

So where do I stand as far as rating this, the debut release by one of the leaders in progressive rock music? I reckon this was a reasonable starting point as everything by the band from here on out will be gauged by this release. The music can get better and then again, it might get worse.

There are five stand-out tracks from the album: In The Beginning' The Serpent, Am I Very Wrong, In The Wilderness and The Conqueror. It is a close call between these tracks, but 5 out of 13 equates to less than 50% of the vote, thus, this has to rate at 2 stars. Sorry.

One last thought about this review; There are many people with great knowledge when it comes to music. These people can give you vast amounts of information pertaining to a specific band, artist, album, etc. Most of which can be read from member reviews and forums.For me it's about the music and whether I like it or not. My reviews are based on what a particular album has to offer and comparisons drawn from previous albums should there be any.

Lastly, the Genesis debut album was released with 2 different names. These are: "From Genesis To Revelation" and "In The Beginning". Both albums contain the same 13 tracks in the same running order. Some of the later releases of this album, after 1977, have a few other names, additional songs and different running order/s to that of the original release.

There are two singles that preceded the debut album release by Genesis: "The Silent Sun/That's Me & A Winter's Tale/One-Eyed Hound". From which only Silent Sun featured on the album under review here. The other tracks are worth a mention, as there are many similarities to the 13 tracks you've just been reading about.

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