Genesis - Trespass

Released - October 1970

Genre - Progressive Rock

Producer - John Anthony

Selected Personnel - Peter Gabriel (Vocals/Flute/Accordion/Percussion); Tony Banks (Organ/Piano/Mellotron/Guitar); Anthony Phillips (Guitar); Mike Rutherford (Bass/Cello); John Mayhew (Drums/Percussion)

Standout Track - The Knife

Another quick jaunt outside of chronology to pop back to late 1970, inspired this time by my long-gestating decision to give Genesis more of a go. As I've mentioned elsewhere, their 1971 album Nursery Cryme (the first to feature the classic line-up of Gabriel, Banks, Rutherford, Hackett and Collins) is one I've always struggled to really enjoy, though the albums that followed it are ones that have gradually really grown in my estimation over the last few years. I therefore always assumed that anything pre-Nursery Cryme would be equally disappointing and would simply showcase a band struggling to find their sound and identity. Eventually, I bit the bullet and decided to at least give Trespass a try, and found myself pleasantly surprised by it. One of its songs (the brilliant mini-epic "The Knife") is genuinely one of the band's best songs, while the rest of it consists of material that might not amaze or surprise anybody already familiar with the band's more well-known material, but is still enormously compelling and interesting. I wish, really, that I had heard it sooner before becoming familiar with the likes of Selling England By The Pound. Coming to it after almost every other Gabriel-era Genesis album, it's easy to dismiss some bits with "Ah, they're falling back on the same old tricks here," before suddenly remembering that at this point the band were really breaking new ground for themselves and discovering new tricks.

Genesis' debut album in 1969, From Genesis To Revelation, had consisted of shorter, baroque pop-styled songs markedly unlike the music they would go on to be known for, and Trespass shows them indulging in the prog rock traditions of the era for the first time, turning their talents to grand, lengthy pieces, complex instrumental passages and all the grandiose bombast typical of prog. I've read that Trespass is, in many ways, the nearest thing there is to being the one specific album that Jethro Tull's marvellous prog piss-take Thick As A Brick was making fun of, though that seems a slightly unfair legacy to give it. Certainly, it's laden with all the heavy-handed pomp of prog rock excess, and there are echoes of its bombastic organ solos in certain passages of Thick As A Brick, but despite all its excesses, Trespass is able to back itself up with genuinely great material. Nursery Cryme seems to me an album far more ripe for mockery, considering it has all the heavy-handedness and bombast of this album, but with far fewer decent musical ideas to recommend itself. Essentially, anybody who gets tired of long-winded prog rock meandering or theatricality will probably find little to enjoy about Trespass, while those, like me, who love the musical journeys this kind of music is able to take a listener on, will find a lot to enjoy.

One of the most interesting things to note, as a Genesis fan already familiar with their work, is how strikingly similar the guitar style of Anthony Phillips is to that of his successor, Steve Hackett. If I hadn't known this album was recorded by a different lineup, I probably wouldn't have had much cause to notice. Clearly, in looking for a replacement for Phillips, the band were keen to find somebody who would gel seamlessly into their newly-established sound rather than requiring them to reinvent it slightly. Peter Gabriel's vocals also sound far more assured than on some of the other Genesis albums - I've always felt that, with his debut solo album Peter Gabriel (I - Car) in 1977, he suddenly acquitted himself as a singer of real power and depth and assurance, while on some of the earlier Genesis albums he sounds reedier and shakier, a style admittedly in keeping with the more loose-limbed and colourful nature of Genesis's music. But in several places on Genesis, Gabriel demonstrates some real vocal power, most notably in the closing moments of "Stagnation" and the declamatory passages of "Looking For Someone" and "The Knife." There's also far more use of Gabriel's flute here than on any other Genesis album, and in places he really demonstrates some genuine talent with the instrument - while most of the other Genesis music I've heard involves his flute playing in simple, purely melodic passages, there are some genuinely acrobatic and impressive moments on show here. He's no Thijs Van Leer or Ian Anderson, but he's no novice either.

Given that I've only been listening to this album for the past two weeks or so, it's difficult for me to go into the nature of the songs in too much detail - if one major complaint could be made of it, it's that some of the longer tracks (like "Looking For Someone," "White Mountain" and "Stagnation,") while all definitely great and highly enjoyable, don't have much to really distinguish themelves, but follow the same general pattern of a lengthy piece progressing through slow, portentous passages and high-energy sections of bombastic organ and guitar playing off each other. The "I need a drink" section of "Stagnation," emerging dramatically from a slower, more thoughtful passage, is one of the most memorable and effective moments. None of them really has a weak point about them, and they're all tremendous fun, but it is the kind of music that probably takes a while to really get under your skin so that every nuance of each song becomes clear, and they admittedly do little to really stand apart from a lot of other Genesis material. The album's two slight misfires are the two songs that abandon the colourful energy that really stands out in those three songs. "Visions Of Angels" is a lengthy, meandering thing that picks up pace in a few places but largely follows a melody too insipid to really enjoy, while "Dusk" is a forgettable pastoral acoustic folk song that thankfully doesn't last too long.

Two fairly uninspired songs and three more that are really enjoyable but slightly indistinguishable does not a great album make, of course, which is why the inclusion of album closer "The Knife" really shoots Trespass into the big leagues. While it's recognisably Genesis, it also manages to be pretty much completely different from nearly everything else of theirs I've heard. There are parts of "Supper's Ready" and "The Battle Of Epping Forest" that come close to the sheer dangerous energy of "The Knife," but they don't really match it. While it's driven by Tony Banks's gloriously insistent and urgent organ riff, it also feels more heavily reliant on guitar than any other Genesis song I can think of - there are some blaring snarls that Phillips lets loose in places, and a thrilling solo in the early section that are almost shocking to a listener familiar with Genesis's keyboard-centric sound. The middle section, that slowly builds in intensity via Gabriel's flute and a chorus of chanting voices (culminating in the command "OK, men, fire over their heads,") before ushering another angry guitar solo, is among the most exciting moments in the band's discography. I'll be honest, this album could consist of five songs of absolute tawdry rubbish and "The Knife" and I would still consider including it on this list. It's that good a song.

Considering the brilliance of that song, and the high quality of most of the other material on offer here, it's a surprise to me that I dislike Nursery Cryme as much as I do. Perhaps I need to give it further listens having got more into Genesis, but I've listened to it many times in the past and have always found little to enjoy about it. It seems odd that the band could go from something as fresh and vital-sounding as this to something I consider so tedious and unimaginative. Perhaps one day Nursery Cryme shall appear on this blog with an embarrassed apology from me, but for now, the next step was the gloriously colourful and theatrical Foxtrot in 1972, before their true masterpiece Selling England By The Pound the year after. If either of those albums appeal, then it's definitely worth giving Trespass a listen - this is a band that are slowly revealing themselves as more worthy of my time than I initially thought. I even listened to Invisible Touch this week and didn't find it half as repulsive as I assumed I would...

Track Listing:

All songs written by Tony Banks, Peter Gabriel, Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford.

1. Looking For Someone

2. White Mountain

3. Visions Of Angels

4. Stagnation

5. Dusk

6. The Knife