Having been, it is said, discovered by impresario (and later child molester) Jonathan King, though used by him to play the music he wanted them to and not the music they wanted to and were capable of, Genesis and he parted company after their first, far from wildly successful album. The band were now free to explore the more creative side of their music, without worrying about someone trying to direct them towards hit singles. The last album to feature guitarist Anthony Phillips, you could say he lost out on a chance at fame and fortune, but Phillips found that he suffered from chronic stagefright, and once Genesis became well known and began to gig properly that would have been a major problem. You can't have one member of the band who refuses to appear onstage, can you? So after this album he made the decision to leave, and admits himself he never regretted it, nor had any real choice in the matter at the time.
Nevertheless, with or without him, this album - which most fans see as Genesis's first real album - would be the one that would begin to define and shape their sound and their musical identity, and lead to them spearheading the progressive rock movement of the seventies, and eventually becoming household names, despite having really only a small number of hit singles in their now over forty years together. This album would be something of a barometer as to what a progressive rock album could be, following in the footsteps of the likes of Procol Harum and Van Der Graaf Generator, and would set them on a road that, while far from being an easy one to stardom, would elevate them into the highest echelons of music and inspire generations of musicians for decades to come.
Trespass (1970)
Beginning a relationship that would last for pretty much all of their career (the last official release on Charisma was 1986's
Invisible Touch, though future recordings, made on the Virgin label, can still in effect be said to have been on Charisma, as Branson's monster absorbed the smaller label in 1983) and make a success of what was then a struggling minor label (Tony Stratton-Smith used to manage bands in his spare time, when he was not writing sports articles in his job as journalist), only in existence two years but fated to become inextricably linked with not only Genesis, but progressive rock bands,
Trespass is really the dawning of what would become known as the Gabriel era, which would last up until 1975, when he would leave the band to pursue a solo career.
Although every musician on the album deserves credit, the first thing you hear when the needle hits the vinyl (yeah, yeah!) is the plaintive voice of Peter Gabriel as he declares he is “Looking for Someone”, the title indeed of the opening track. Next Tony Banks's soft synth lines smooth in before percussion cuts in and Anthony Phillips's guitar comes into the mix too, filling out what had been a rather hollow, lonely sound. You can already see here how Gabriel is able to switch from a fairly gentle vocal to a more animated, almost manic one at times, as he does in the first verse here. Certain publications, including of course Wiki, have labelled this as pastoral music, and yes, some of it most certainly is. But it would be a mistake to think there are no more intense, faster, punchy moments on the album. Tracks like “The Knife” (which closes the album, and is anything but pastoral), “Visions of Angels” and parts of “White Mountain” all speak to a band more than ready to rock out when the occasion, or the song, demands it. To think of this as a folk album or something would be wildly inaccurate and well short of the mark. There are many folk-tinged passages on it, to be sure, but it is so much more than that. Before our eyes, a whole new way of crafting songs is coming into being.
Not that I'm suggesting that Genesis began progressive rock or anything, but up to the release of this album the only thing comparable in sound would have been the likes of The Moody Blues and to some extent Van der Graaf Generator, though the latter tended to have a harder, more jazzy edge to their music. Procol Harum were tinkering with such ideas too, but Genesis seem to have been the first band to really explore this idea of, for the want of another phrase, “English countryside music” and marry it to harder, rockier sections, often in the same song. Yes had released their debut album the previous year, but even that was more symphonic than what Genesis were doing. Genesis would have many imitators, some of whom would carry on into the twenty-first century with the likes of Big Big Train and Gazpacho using their template - often a little too closely - but few if any would ever approach their unique style over the years.
Other, non-standard instruments are used on this album too. Not for the first time ever do we hear flutes and accordions - Zappa, Tull, The Moodies, all of these and probably more had used them by this point - but I feel Genesis tend to blend them better into their compositions here. Also one of the first bands to bring keyboards to the fore (The Nice had of course led the way under Keith Emerson, and later with ELP, and Yes would also champion the keyboard), an instrument that is now not only synonymous with but integral to any prog rock band, even now. Can you think of a prog rock outfit that doesn't use keys? Neither can I. Anyway, back to the album. We're only on track one and we have a ways to go yet.
Less than two minutes into the seven-minute opener and we have a galloping drumbeat develop as Banks fires off the Hammond organ. It slows down then for an instrumental passage, and if you're a fan you should be able to hear the embryonic “Supper's Ready” in there. In the fourth minute it kicks up again, striding into another but heavier instrumental section, driven by Banks's Hammond again with flourishes from Gabriel's flute. The guitar from Phillips comes in here pretty heavily too. I will admit that this song has never been one of my favourites on the album, and tends usually to kind of pass me by when I play it. Even now, as I review it, it's not quite engaging my attention and interest as other songs on
Trespass will. A slick little guitar solo then as we near the end of the song, more flute and we end as we began on Gabriel's yearning vocal.
It's not the most powerful or, indeed, impressive of starts, but with elements of “Return of the Giant Hogweed” in its closing sections, it's a statement of intent by a new band who choose to start their “first” album off with a seven-minute song that changes more times than the Irish weather. You can't say they're not ambitious, and playing it safe has been firmly removed from the table. Going further off the reservation, so to speak, they then decide to tell the tale of treachery and betrayal in the world of the wolf, as we move into “White Mountain”, a song with not a single intrusion by a human, a beautiful acoustic guitar by Mike Rutherford taking it in, backed by soft, humming keys before Gabriel begins the tale. The song bears the title of the album, so technically it can be regarded as the title track, and it speaks of a wolf called Fang (hmm) who trespasses on the sacred ground of his people, and is pursued and killed for it.
”Outcast he trespassed where no-one may tread/ The last sacred haunt of the dead” snarls Gabriel, as the pack sets off after Fang. There's quite the role for flute here, and Banks's frenetic keys set up a great atmosphere of a chase, a hunt, helped along by new drummer John Mayhew's thunderous fusilade, but the song really rides on Rutherford's uptempo acoustic guitar, his first real chance to step out from behind Anthony Phillips and show what he can do. This song, too, is long - well, they all are: the album only has seven tracks - though slightly less so than the opener at a shade under seven minutes, and like “Looking for someone” it changes as it goes along, another hallmark of what was slowly coalescing as progressive rock. In the middle it stops to a slow, doomy march, as Fang is accused of the crime for which he stands trial, Gabriel in the character of the old wolf chieftain One-Eye loudly declaiming behind slow, almost funereal drums, which I consider a great performance from Mayhew, though he would be fired after this album
”Only the king sees the crown of the gods/ And he, the usurper must die!”
Another sprightly keyboard run is the backdrop for the fight between Fang and One-Eye, with the old wolf emerging victorious, and Gabriel's flute plays a soft, sad but victorious melody as whistling takes us out, accompanied by the humming chant that began the song. If that was characterised by Phillips's and Rutherford's guitars though, “Visions of Angels” rides almost entirely on Banks's piano and keyboard lines, and I've always wondered if Gabriel used some sort of phased effect on his voice as it gets kind of, I don't know, metallic or something, a little out of phase. Banks's swirling keyboard attack mocks the hymns sung in church as Gabriel snarls
”I believe there never is an end/ God gave up this world/ Its people long ago.” This is one of my favourite early Genesis songs; I've always loved it and I always will. Choral vocals wash over the keyboard as it stabs in fury towards a heaven that may not exist, and for a band whose original album was supposed to be based on the Bible, this is very much a stepping away from that, separating themselves out from what Jonathan King wanted and declaring their own leanings, making their own way, making their own music.
This is one of the songs too where the pure anger and bitterness Gabriel can put into his voice comes through very strongly, dropped to a soft croon and then building again to that raging, impotent fury as the song winds to a close. Almost the longest track on the album at just short of nine minutes, “Stagnation” tells the tale of the last man on Earth, who retreated to a bunker deep beneath the planet, and survived, but alone. He sings of his loneliness, how he misses the things he used to take for granted, and quite possibly at the end goes mental. Phillips drives this with his smooth electric guitar lines, dancing and weaving through Gabriel's voice which, beginning soft and almost murmuring, soon changes to a more strident, insistent, accusatory and then pleading tone as the enormity of his loneliness, the totality of his being the only human left alive sinks in.
He speaks as if to someone, but there is nobody there to hear him. The song is full of long instrumental interludes, each of which leads, it would seem, to a change in the man's mental attitude and sanity. After the first verse, a frenetic Hammond solo breaks out, hammering along and carrying the tune until eventually it builds to a mad crescendo and then just... stops. As it does, Gabriel sings
”Wait” and begins the next verse, in which he speaks of going home, or wishing he could. I think he's reliving the memories of the life he used to lead. The vocal here is again almost muttered, but gaining in strength as it goes on, then he uses that phased (if it is phased) effect again as his voice acquires a distinctly weird, almost alien tinge, all of which leads up to another big explosion of guitar and keyboard, the drums leading the passage in.
”I want a drink!” Gabriel yells.
”I want a drink to take all the dust and the dirt from my throat!” Then begins a slow flute melody that is taken up by the guitar and then the keyboard, getting stronger as it grows, Banks virtually hammering the keys as the song barrels to a close with a big intense flourish. “Dusk” is again propelled on a lovely, I think, twelve-string guitar with a soft vocal from Gabriel, and some really nice vocal harmonies. Almost immediately the music takes a turn towards the ominous, then slips back into its original groove, Hammond now sighing into the mix. This by far the shortest track on the album, barely over four minutes. There's some fairly prominent flute in it and some lovely classical guitar before it heads into its closing section with another phrase that will become a signature of this band. It ends quietly, but Banks sets his seal on the end by again hitting the final piano key with some force. Shortest is followed by longest, and when I first heard this it came as something of a surprise to me.
Genesis are not, and never have been, known for hard rock numbers. They have had, in the interim, some fast pop songs, yes, and some pretty intense passages in songs, but by and large you don't think of them in terms of what you get with “The Knife”, which seems to be a song about a Hitler-like figure who whips up his followers to revolution, advising them
”I'll give you the names of/ Those you must kill/ All must die with their children/ Carry their heads to the palace of old/ Hang them on stakes/ Let the blood flow!” It is interesting - and intentional of course - that the “messiah” figure makes sure he does not get his hands dirty, warning prophetically
”Some of you are going to die/ Martyrs of course to the freedom/ That I shall provide!” This all rides along on a bouncy, ebullient Hammond line from Banks, the euphoria of the masses being set free (so they think) to strike at their masters (those who stand in the way of their self-appointed leader) perfectly captured as the song careers along.
The guitars are almost boogie blues as they follow the keyboard melody, and Gabriel is at his most manic as he leads his followers through blood and fire to victory, or so he says. In around the middle everything falls away to Rutherford's ominously pulsing bass, then crying guitar before we hear the sound of an army, police force or other symbol of authority yelling
”Fire over their heads!” and the ensuing sounds of panic as people run headlong, trying to get away from the firefight, suddenly aware that they could be killed. Despite this obvious rout, Gabriel screams
”We have won!” and the song end on another powerful, frenetic guitar solo and keyboard passage as Gabriel yells, perhaps somewhat superfluously,
”Some of you are going to die/ Martyrs of course to the freedom/ That I shall provide!” and with some final hammered keyboard chords and a flurry on the drums, the curtain comes down.
TRACK LISTING
Looking for Someone
White Mountain
Visions of Angels
Stagnation
Dusk
The Knife
From beginning to end, you can see right through this album that this is a new Genesis, the real Genesis if you will. Mike Rutherford would later characterise
From Genesis to Revelation as nothing more than "a bunch of kids on their holidays", and as I said in the previous review, that's pretty much what it feels like: some young lads taking time off school to go and have a few larks bashing out some tunes. Despite what King wanted or hoped for, this at that time was not a band who were ready for the charts, and they were never going to make him big money.
This, however, was a total different proposition. The earnestness with which the band worked, the blood, sweat and tears you can hear leaking out of every song, as Gabriel struggled to get the words perfect, and indeed the songcraft in these six songs, show a band ready to stop playing around and get down to the serious business of playing music. It helped of course that the album had mostly been played in its entirety (not in one go of course, but tracks from it) live, so Genesis already had an idea what people liked, and more to the point, what they didn't like.
The strain of making and touring the album though, together with a bout of glandular fever and severe stagefright would cause Anthony Phillips to depart the band, shocking his compatriots but leaving them no choice but to audition for a replacement, which they would find in a young guitarist called Steve Hackett. Drummer John Mayhew, having failed to meet the exacting standards of the band, would be let go too, and be replaced by a lad called Collins, as what would become the classic Genesis lineup of the seventies coalesced.
Although
Trespass sold a mere six thousand copies on its release, hardly world-shattering sales, the band were pleased with its reception and soon set about recording its follow up. This would contain some future classics, though decent sales would continue to elude them, as would chart success, for a time.
But then, these guys were young, and time was one thing they had in abundance.
Rating: 9.8/10