NURSERY CRYME

In Nursery Crime, Genesis´third album, Steve Hackett and Phil Collins joined the group with the guitar and the percussion, respectively. With them, the arrangement of the group that made the most iconic disc of Genesis was complete. Hackett and Collins´ incorporation was vital to hone the band´s musical proposal. The lyrics, at once mythic and fantastical, worked out primarily by the prolific Peter Gabriel, took Genesis to the progressive rock Olympus.

The album initiates with the monumental Musical Box, a fiction of the Victorian England in which Henry´s spirit (an 8- year-old child murdered by 9-year-old Cynthia) returns to haunt his murderer. The song is undoubtedly among the greatest Genesis creations: a 10-minute symphony of diverging rhythms that concludes with an exuberant ending. The album continues with a respite: For Absent Friends, a slow ballad sung by Phil Collins. Nonetheless, Nursery Crime surprises us yet again with the amazing The Return Of The Giant Hogweed, a song about a carnivorous plant that breaks havoc in London.

The album continues with Seven Stone, a demonstration of the mastery of the mellotron by Tony Banks. Despite being a great song, it hasn´t transcended as much as other compositions. After that, both the suicidal Harold The Barrel and the ballad Harlequin are interesting pieces that don´t surpass the 3-minute mark. Further down the album, The Fountain of Salmacis is a fine portrayal of Hermaphrodite´s origin. It is an excellent closure for Nursery Crime, a must- have album in the musical library of all the Genesis admirers and all the progressive rock listeners.