Genesis
Trespass
(MCA, 1970)

Today, Genesis is best known for the nauseating and mindless pop atrocities that were “I Can’t Dance” and “Invisible Touch”, but if all were right with the world, the band would be better known for their proggy, glam-rock, Peter Gabriel era. The band’s second album, Trespass, released in 1970, though often overlooked is a grand, dynamic monument of rock. Cinematic and diaphanous, with loud-quiet-loud moments of beautiful sincerity that cascade into the heavy thunderous progressions of a great army’s battle march, the album strives to be all things at once and comes pretty fucking close.

Opener “Looking for Someone” begins with singer Peter Gabriel in a plaintive voice with a reverb that sounds like he’s in a vast cavern deep below the surface of the earth. “Keep on a straight line / I don’t believe I can / Trying to find a needle in a haystack / Chilly wind you’re piercing like a dagger / It hurts me so.” The honesty in the vocal delivery cuts the listener. It hurts, too. It sounds like a recovering junkie’s confession and it pulls you right in.

The next song, “White Mountain”, could almost have been the soundtrack for an epic fantasy cartoon, but Gabriel sells it by the pound, making even lines like “A wolf never flees in the face of his foe” seem rooted in pathos. That is part of what makes this album so good, that the band is committed wholly to what they are trying to achieve here—the album is free of irony and not in the slightest bit cheesy. In context, coming three years after Sgt. Pepper’s and only a year after Tommy, it’s not hard to see how a band could go this far to be so grandiose, but it summons a gravitas that few bands in 2008 (aside from Radiohead) can conjure. The album shoots to be an epoch-defining statement or portrait of mankind, and really only slightly misses that mark.

The third song, “Visions of Angels”, opens with a simple, circular piano riff and 12-string guitar that would not be out of place on a Bette Midler album, but Gabriel’s emphatic vocal and a crashing “Baba O’Reilly”-esque electric guitar/drum combo elevate the music to something greater than the simplistic intro. A song about man’s unrequited love with god, Gabriel sings “I believe there never is an end / God gave up the world, its people long ago / Why she’s never there I still don’t understand,” and a carnal, sentimental frustration comes through.   

The nearly nine-minute “Stagnation” follows, but does not stagnate. At first, the song sounds like the more ambient music of Pink Floyd, featuring a spacey, pitch-shifting synthesizer, but the two verses quickly shuffle into organ-rollicking jams, the final of which climaxes with shouts of “I want to sit down / I want a drink.”

“Dusk” is a quiet acoustic number, the shortest of the album’s six songs at four minutes, and probably the weakest of the bunch if only for its inability to completely rock your face off like the rest of them. The fault is quickly forgiven with the final song.

Closer “The Knife” pumps, a martyr-anthem for modern terrorism whose sound showcases some of Gabriel’s early punk and new wave leanings: “Tell me my life is about to begin / Tell me that I am a hero / Promise me all of your violent dreams… It is time to destroy all evil… Stand up and fight for you know we are right / We must strike at the lies that have spread like disease through our minds.” The music pounds a frightening call to arms. When the song ends, it feels like something just exploded, the smoldering embers crackling and floating down from the sky all around you.

The album is full of time signature changes and genre-bending melodies and riffs—funky organ lines jut up against triumphant electric guitar in a way that would make a lot of post-rock fans pump their fists. The lyrical themes seem to encompass all of history at once—rich images ranging from kings and epic battles to subways and magazines. Visions of Buddha, Jesus, and angels waft through baroque, pop-infused heavy metal.

Like most of Peter Gabriel’s work, the album was too far ahead of its time. In 1974, Rolling Stone writer Gordon Fletcher said of a reissue of Trespass, “It’s spotty, poorly defined, at times innately boring, and should be avoided by all but the most rabid Genesis fans.” I don’t even know who a rabid Genesis fan would be in 2008, but there is nothing about this album that is boring. Even the extended instrumental passages remain interesting with the band’s remarkable ability to create sonic tension. Trespass was unfortunately the only album with drummer John Mayhew, later replaced by Phil Collins (on 1971’s Nursery Cryme). Mayhew’s explosive drumming combined with Tony Banks’ keyboard playing is what propels most of the record. Of the members that played on Trespass, only bassist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks are still in Genesis.  

When Peter Gabriel left the band in 1975, Phil Collins said, “We’re going to carry on as if nothing had happened.” It was doubtful, but they did it. Gabriel had been the frontman, the lead singer, and a primary creative force and his departure signaled a drastic change in style and philosophy for the band, who unfortunately went on to release eight additional studio albums without him.

This October, a DVD/SACD version of the album is set to be released, which should appease many of the hardcore fans. The first pressings of the CD were too quiet, and the first remastered versions suffer from so much compression and noise reduction that the tonal and harmonic range is diminished, making a lot of the album sound muddy when compared to the original LP version. If you really want to hear it how it should be heard, I’d recommend getting your hands on the original vinyl copy and a good set of headphones.

Watch: Genesis performing “The Knife“ in Paris in 1973 [at youtube.com]

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