A TRICK OF THE TAIL

Peter Gabriel's departure was a pity, since the band lost a great songwriter and one of the most brilliant and polifacetic vocalists of the past century. However, his loss was not probably as important artistically speaking as Hackett's, for example. This album and the next are two (splendid) examples of this statement. Although Gabriel is not there, the spirit is still present. Even Phil Collins managed at this stage to provide an excellent 'Gabriel-esque' vocal counterpart that unfortunately he decided to abandon later to develop a more personal style. If that is good or bad, is something up to everyone's opinion, although his vocal performance in this ocassion was the appropiate one.

Generally speaking, and although I'm yet to listen to a lot of material from the 'non- progressive' era, I dare to state that this is probably the best Genesis record with Phil Collins as a vocalist and probably my personal favourite after "Foxtrot" and "Selling England by the pound" ("The Lamb..." is also amongst my favourites but probably in a lower scale). It is probably one of the most melodic and artistically sweet albums from this band (a lot in the vein of "SEBTP"). Each song is a true melodic experience that should be tasted slowly and carefully.

"Dance on a volcano" is probably one of the best intro songs I've ever listened from any band, its guitar introduction is a quite original and brilliant one, and a grand spirit is kept along the entire song. "Entangled" is another reason (amongst the many) of why Steve Hackett's departure was so important for this band. A simply delicious song. Collins also sings pretty well here. "Squonk" has another guitar starting arrangement that is amongst my favourites. Tony Banks' symphonic work is quite remarkable also (organ, mellotron and the such), like it was in many works from the Gabriel era. "Mad Man Moon" starts in a very romantic way and Tony Banks performs another excellent work here, this time with piano. "Robbery, Assault & Battery" is another humorous and rhytmic song like were "I Know what I like" or "The Battle of the Epping Forest" and is also a very mellotron-influenced song. "Ripples" provide us with another Hackett-Banks instrumental tandem also acomppanied with one of the best Phil Collins' vocal performances. "A Trick of the tail" is a curious story which talks about the human race from the perspective of an extrasterrestial visitor. It is another quite rhytmic song. And finally, "Los Endos" serves its purpose as an excellent instrumental closure and proves that Genesis have a nice and unsuspected touch for instrumentals (some of them are found to be their best pieces).

I have to say that I have truly enjoyed this album, as well as I have done with many of the early Genesis albums I'm listening to recently. Maybe I'm doing to many five stars reviews but it is the case that when a record deserves it, it deserves it.

Happy listening.