FOXTROT

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Started his review with a quote that describes my opinion of Foxtrot, being that it doesn't have my favorite GENESIS song (The Musical Box) neither is their more mature album, but each time I listen this masterpiece, I notice that there isn't any note that I would delete without ruining the balance achieved by the band.

Foxtrot starts with Watcher of the Skies and it's famous Baroque intro with Mellotron and Organ, the mysterious sound achieved by Tony Banks is a perfect introduction of the dark atmosphere of the album, but that's only the beginning. The solid bass and percussion passage announces the entrance of Peter Gabriel, who may not have the bast voice in the market, but knows how to transmit a message of the audience. The radical changes and accurate organ describe perfectly how the remains of a society can be viewed by an external being. Simply the best opener for a magnificent album.

Time Table may not be the most elaborate song, but the soft combination of piano and vocals relaxes the listener after an epic opener and prepares us for the rest of the album. This what i refer to when i talk about balance, GENESIS has better songs that could had replaced Time Table, but this is the right song for this moment of the album.

Some bands try to achieve complexity to demonstrate how good they are, but Get 'em Out by Friday shows us that complexity must not be searched, it must flow naturally when a song requires it. In Get 'em Out by Friday the band combines not only Sci Fy with greed and every day tragedies, but also strong feelings such as violence, strength, fear and acceptance.

But the merit is that they add all this sentiments not only by the short dialogues from the perspective of STYX Enterprises, the Winkler and the old couple who has to leave their house, but also with the choice of instruments that go from aggressive guitar and keyboards to sweet nostalgic flute and of course the versatile vocals. Dramatic from start to end, they combine

Can-Utility and the Coastliners tells us the story of King Knute, who's followers believed could order the ocean to retreat. Normally GENESIS tracks were famous for their lyrics, but in this case the incredibly beautiful music leaves. I know that many fans consider keyboardists as Wakeman or Emerson the peak of the crop, but the humble Tony Banks demonstrates how a member of a band has to play without letting his ego, despite this fact, his organ solos give me goosebumps each time I play the album. In my opinion the highest point of Foxtrot.

Until now I hadn't mentioned the name Steve Hackett, not because lack of skills, by but because he sacrificed his personal interests for the sake of the band, playing as a piece of a well oiled machined instead of a soloist searching for glory, but in Horizons he has e chance to show us a bit of his talent. This calmed interlude between two epics is one of the most delightful guitar pieces I ever heard, not complex, not pompous, but precise and beautiful.

The album ends with the 21 minutes super epic Supper's Ready, almost a mini opera with different characters all performed by Peter Gabriel, a fight between good and evil that ends after the breathtaking "Apocalypse in 9/8, where GENESIS does one of the best instrumental passages of history, but I won't go deeper, because words can ruin the musical experience.

I always believed that Trespass", Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot are the great trilogy of Gabriel's GENESIS, because after this point, the dark and dense atmosphere was lost., so we are talking about an essential masterpiece that marks (in my opinion) the peak of GENESIS, and the reason why I give this gem 5 stars, as a fact if I was allowed to rank only one album with , it would be Foxtrot.

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