TRESPASS

From the oft-bemoaned album "From Genesis to Revelation", Genesis took a well-deserved year off to explore the path beyond the place it was stuck at. Returning to the studio in summer 1970, it created their biggest, most experimental piece of work yet - "Trespass". Few before would have dared to make an album of 40 minutes with only six songs. Then again, few before could have done it without getting boring!

As with my review of the previous Genesis album, I will give each song between zero and two points each, then put it out of the maximum possibility and rate the album from there.

"Looking for Someone" is a track about a man trying to find someone who understands his plight, whatever it may be. It starts slowly, and Peter's voice seems a little too grating, but by the end it comes crashing down in a masterful display of hard rock. One point.

"White Mountain" starts out like most of the bands material, a slow, hazy folk piece, before turning the volume up to eleven and thrashing Fang the wolf upside the head, then quieting back down into a haunting outro. Two points.

"Visions of Angels" is the oldest song, being a leftover from the "FGTR" sessions, but it doesn't show any sign of being outdated. This one sounds simple, only about a man wishing for his woman, but the pity the music makes you feel for him and the desperation in Gabriel's vocals leaves you wondering if it really was just a break-up song. Maybe she died! ("Angels" from heaven, taking her away?) Your imagination is the limit with this one, and most musicians can't make something open-ended like that. Two points.

"Stagnation" is about a man who has survived a nuclear holocaust only to find he is the last person alive, and he mourns his friends and relatives before feeling fallout radiation's effects and dying. This has a true example of fridge brilliance in the lines "I want a drink... I said I wanna sit down!" If you look it up, two major early signs of radiation poisoning are dehydration and fatigue! All from a bunch of 18-20 year olds... Two points.

"Dusk" plays the same role as "Harlequin", "Horizons",and "In the Rapids". It is sort of a "reset button" so everyone can get the full reaction from the encore number of the album. Even so, it is a beautiful piece, apparently starting about getting dirty with a girl (like most songs since the 1920's) and the taking a heart-wrenching twist in that the girl dies after childbirth. It's very sad, as you might be able to tell. Two points.

"The Knife" is the big climax of the album, and an early crowd favorite. ( Gabriel himself once got so excited during this number that he jumped into the crowd and broke his leg on some dancing guy...) It is a sort of ironic ode to revolutions that fail in helping the country (like the Who's "We Won't Get Fooled Again"). Two head-banging, air-drumming points.

So, that's 11 out of 12, or about 92%, which I'll round to five out of five stars. (And trust me, Trespass deserves it!)