SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

I've been coming to this site for a while and have wanted to submit reviews, but never got around to it... until now. So this is my first review and what a way to start ! Simply put, this album has everything which prog is all about(or what it aspires to be, I suppose). At various times, it has been bouncing from 1 through 4 on the Top Prog albums chart- currently it is fourth, but in my humble opinion, it "represents" better than the three albums currently above it.

The Good: And there is much good(yea, even great about this album). "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" blew me away the first time I heard it. "Firft of Fifth" is the song I play for people whenever they ask "What is Progressive Rock ?" And the Keyboard solo on "The Cinema Show" shows why Banks and Genesis understood melody better than most of their contemporaries. "After the Ordeal" is a bittersweet instrumental number which never bores me.

The Bad: OK, "More Fool Me" isn't as bad a Collins ballad as some other reviewers have said. Still, it does seem to be an omen of things to come (ie. Follow You, Follow Me).

The Ugly: I've never really liked "The Battle of Epping Forest." I used to really, really hate it, but now I've made my peace with it after many, many listens in the hope I'd finally "get it." I still don't get it, but I tolerate it and can now listen to the album all the way through without skipping it.

In closing, SEBTP is a must have album if you want to have any sort of completeness to your progressive rock collection.