Genesis
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

THE REVIEW

Burdensome is the honor of reviewing this album.

Describing it in every aspect would mean writing an excessively long review; on the other hand, it would be impossible to express all its greatness in a few lines. So let's not get lost in useless words and start talking about it right away.

'The Lamb' comes out in 1974, and initially, it is received rather coldly by both critics and the general public. Evidently, both had become accustomed to considering Genesis as "the most skilled storytellers of progressive tales", and thus they must have been quite surprised to see Gabriel and his companions, fresh from the success of 'Selling England By The Pound', presenting themselves with a dark concept album rooted in (difficult) reality.

The point is that the group, or rather its singer (the concept's creator), had foreseen the "progressive" decline of the genre of which he and his band were the champions, a couple of years in advance.

Today, some speak of The Lamb as a Prog classic: for me, this definition is incorrect. Classics of Prog are Foxtrot, In The Court Of The Crimson King, Close To The Edge, Thick As A Brick? Just to name the most well-known.

The Lamb is something more.

It is too varied, containing too many different elements to be classified in a genre that is undoubtedly open but still has boundaries that delimit it.

Those who disagree with me should try to focus on the sharp and electronic sounds of the "title track" (which is progressive only in Banks' superb piano intro), of "In The Cage", "Riding The Scree"; the hard impact of tracks like "Back In N.Y.C." or "Lilywhite Lilith"; the experimental irony of "The Grand Parade Of Lifeless Packaging" and "Counting Out Time", which are still catchy (the latter was even released as the first single). Singles? One might even think there's a bit of pop in here! And this isn't entirely wrong: of course, these aren't little songs for the Hit Parade like "Invisible Touch," but rather apparently simple music which actually has a studied and very complicated structure?

An example is "Carpet Crawlers", about which one could write volumes, but in the end, it would still always remain what it is: simply beautiful.

So what remains of prog in 'The Lamb'?

Calm down, calm down, it is a double album, containing as many as 23 songs in which the 5 musicians have the chance to showcase all their remarkable technical-compositional skills. Banks' solos are few but good, all on synthesizer. But the true greatness of the instrumentalists emerges from the structure of the songs: Hackett forgoes long solo parts to "limit" himself (so to speak) to refining, and he does it very well. The use of the Mellotron is limited, and it is the piano, rather than the organ, that accompanies most of the tracks, especially in the second disc. Rutherford is forced to almost completely put aside his much-loved 12-strings, which appears only at the beginning of "Fly On A Windshield", in "In The Rapids", and in "It", more for a rhythmic than a harmonic role. However, his contribution to the bass, often distorted to give the tracks a darker atmosphere, is fundamental. Phil Collins inserts himself forcefully among the best drummers of his time: continuous time changes, often in odd meters, unequivocally demonstrate his great abilities, which are also noticeable in the always perfect harmonies.

Am I perhaps forgetting someone? Ah, yes, Peter Gabriel.

That genius Peter Gabriel? The main instrument in 'The Lamb' is his voice, which finally reaches its peak of technique and, above all, of expressiveness. The lyrics, all strictly rhymed, are born from his twisted mind, and it is undoubtedly for this reason that the vocalist interprets them with such emotion; now he unleashes all his anger, now he has fun interpreting different characters by changing his voice; now he pushes as high as he can to represent scenes of great drama, now he finally reassures us with his warm and deep voice? in short, he is the protagonist of these two discs. He is, after all, the Rael whose varied and almost absurd adventures are narrated. And even though they are not as blatant and evident as in Waters' "The Wall" (which I consider a crumb compared to The Lamb), the references to events and people close to the concept's author are present nonetheless.

Hidden behind a macabre story of blood-stained lambs appearing on the streets of New York, living walls that kill you by crushing you in obscure cages, young thugs who end up in bed with porcupines, caves with 32 doors, mysterious creatures with a woman's face and a snake's body that, after satisfying you sexually, force you to transform into "Slippermen", leaving you no alternative but to have yourself castrated to escape a horrible fate? In short, EVERYTHING.

It was obvious that an album like this had to be presented live in a more than theatrical way: and if until that moment Gabriel's figure on stage (who performed, sometimes dressing up, the subjects of the songs) dominated, on The Lamb tour all the eyes of the spectators were on him. The rest of the band, forced to stay in the background playing impossible parts, noticed this. And the frontman noticed that they noticed. And thus, very briefly put, came the decline of Genesis. Mind you: not genesis, but Genesis.