Genesis
Trespass

THE REVIEW

Everyone knows that Genesis was one of the best progressive bands ever, at least while Peter Gabriel was at the helm. But not everyone knows that Genesis debuted with an album, "From Genesis To Revelation", which was an absolute flop, barely selling 600 copies. However, the lineup was not the one everyone knows, which would become the most important (Gabriel, Collins, Rutherford, Hackett, and Banks) the following year with the album "Trespass", which leans much more towards the progressive that would characterize the first Genesis decade compared to the whimsical pop of the previous album.

The album opens with Looking For Someone, a song neither praiseworthy nor disgraceful, that does not leave a mark, even though Banks already showcases his great skills. White Mountain is instead one of the best songs on the LP, where Gabriel delivers a vocally powerful performance and Banks' haunting keyboard leaves you breathless! However, it must be said that White Mountain is somewhat monotonous, and after 3 minutes you will know the rhythm by heart! Vision Of Angels is a beautiful ballad of about 7 minutes with a sweet and harmonious rhythm, where Banks excels at the piano impeccably, without overshadowing the work of Hackett, Rutherford, and Collins, with the usual Gabriel on vocals. Stagnation is a mediocre song, following the pattern of the previous song but falling short in comparison. Dusk is the shortest song on the LP (4 minutes), yet another slow piece that this time walks on Hackett’s strings and Gabriel’s voice. And here we are at one of the most famous Genesis songs that would later become the closing song of Genesis concerts: The Knife, a rocking song with an ironic yet simultaneously unsettling atmosphere, whose musical style will be revisited with The Return Of The Giant Hogweed while the themes are those that are traversed throughout the LP: guilt and legends of medieval and baroque origins, which in some cases (especially in Nursery Cryme) recall baroque musicality, which in Genesis is only a background element that aims to make an already refined and genuine musicality even more fascinating, whereas true baroque has been seen to exhaustion first with Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and later with Kiss, Queen, etc., and it has also been seen in Gabriel’s unsettling and ironic costumes from "Foxtrot" concerts onwards. But from "Foxtrot" onwards, the refinement will increase significantly until reaching the magnificence of "Selling England By The Pound", a true must in the Genesis discography, definitively abandoning the partial pomposity present in the early albums (first and foremost "From Genesis To Revelation").

In reality, this album is nothing more than the starting point from which the perfect circle of Genesis music will be drawn from "Nursery Cryme" to "Wind & Wuthering", a circle that will be partially erased by the commercial albums of the '80s and '90s. So this record is recommended to those who are already familiar with Gabriel's Genesis, to understand how they laid their roots, while others... might make an interesting discovery...