Genesis
Foxtrot

THE REVIEW

First of all, let me say that "Foxtrot" is in my opinion the best album of all time, but let's go step by step.

The career of Genesis began when the affluent families of Peter Gabriel and colleagues sent them to study at a private London institute, where they met and formed Genesis. The first members were Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Antony Phillips. Their first CD, due to the influence of producer Jonathan King, is quite commercial despite the ambition of the concept: a concept album about the Old Testament. The result is a very inconsistent CD, alternating in its very short compositions between pop moments and overly pompous moments due to extensive use of winds (instruments that Genesis would learn to use much better later on).

The second album, "Trespass," shows a marked improvement, with very beautiful songs like "Looking for Someone," "Stagnation," and obviously "The Knife," which not only became one of the band's most successful tracks but also the closing song of all concerts, at least until Gabriel's departure. Soon after, Phil Collins joined on drums and Steve Hackett on guitar, and they released an even better album: "Nursery Cryme," in which Genesis delivered 7 excellent songs, among which "The Musical Box," "Seven Stones," and "The Fountain of Salmacis" stand out.

How do you improve an album that is already so good? Genesis succeeded with the subsequent "Foxtrot," brilliant right from the cover, laden with subtle references to the true (to say the least, amorous) meaning of the album's compositions. The first song is "Watcher of the Skies," a very varied song that, after an excellent musical start, flows into an equally pleasant rock before ending with a new instrumental crescendo, perhaps the most beautiful part of the song. It's followed by a short but extraordinary song: "Time Table," which also features a marvelous crescendo of intensity. Next comes the album's less perfect part, with two songs, although excellent, that, in my opinion, fail to reach the level of the others: the rock-flavored "Get 'Em Out by Friday" and the more elegant "Can Utility and the Coastliners," which may remind one of tracks from the previous album and offers a wonderful Mellotron. Side two opens with the very brief (1:38) yet pleasant "Horizons," a piece played solely on Hackett's guitar, inspired by a cello suite by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The CD closes with a song, or rather, a suite, that alone could bestow five stars upon the album: "Supper's Ready," quintessential Genesis. The track (inspired by a real event at Gabriel and his then-wife's home) opens with an almost spoken part by Peter Gabriel with his wife, and the adventure begins with the phrase "I Swear I Saw Your Face Change" and sends us on a mythological religious journey through the track's seven parts. The second part, "The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man," talks about the unpleasant leader of a scientific religion (a kind of antagonist to Jesus Christ, according to Gabriel), who claimed to know the secret of taming fire. After a brief choir by kids, the third part opens, "Ikhnaton and Itsacon and their Band of Merry Men," referring to two negative figures again who "killed for peace." The fourth part, "How Dare I Be So Beautiful?" references the myth of Hermaphroditus (again ambiguity) and, with its last phrase, or rather word, "A Flower," introduces us to perhaps the album's, and therefore music's, most beautiful part, part 5 "Willow Farm." Its first part is the fastest, hardest to classify into a specific genre, but one can surely say it features the absolute perfection of guitar and drums. More pop, but none the less beautiful, is the second part, separated by an "All Change!" In this part, the two lovers from part 1 are sucked into the same lake that Narcissus was drawn into, finding themselves in a crazy and surreal world. This leads us to the suite's most intense part: "Apocalypse in 9/8," which indeed refers to the biblical story of the apostle John. This piece (as the title suggests) is structured in odd times, causing enormous tension: the world is in danger “Dragons coming out of the sea” and the devil is coming "666, is no longer alone." However, the demon's intrusion is short-lived: he is defeated, and in the seventh and final part, "As Sure as Eggs is Eggs," the song suggests the moral: good is the way to go.

All things considered, this album represents the full artistic maturity of the English group, "Foxtrot" is an absolute masterpiece that only "Selling England by the Pound" will manage to approach.