Published on May 5, 2005
Progressive rock usually comes in two flavors: overblown or
sublime. If you’re lucky, the album turns out to be the latter.
However
Trespass is in a whole different situation: completely
indispensable.
Genesis has always crafted albums that sound good. Their
musicianship has never been in question; from what I’ve heard from
the band that much can be said.
Trespass is their second album, following the learning
experience that was
From Genesis To Revelation. While this work is an
improvement to be sure, it lacks the cohesiveness and genius of
later albums such as
Selling England By The Pound.
Too often, and this goes for bands from Floyd to Yes, the
concept of prog rock goes as follows: noodle aimlessly for a few
minutes without really going anywhere.
Trespass unfortunately decides to go down that road, and
that’s what really hurts the music. For example, did the band
really think that having the music in “White Mountain” at one point
fade out between speakers was really that earth-shattering? What
that is, is merely Genesis trying to sound “artistic” because they
could.
Minor gems can be found amongst the “jam sessions” that are
Trespass. For starters, this particular unit of the band,
which included founders Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, and Michael
Rutherford, along with Anthony Phillips and John Mayhew, showcase
some very good harmonies on tracks like “Visions Of Angels.” The
harmonies make up for Gabriel’s mostly average performance; it
leads one to ponder whether he was still experimenting with his own
particular vocal sound. While I trashed some of “White Mountain”
earlier, the opening and closing bits set a wonderfully dark mood,
reminding me of music from a Rankin-Bass movie (there’s your
obscure movie reference for the day).
To hear a song that’s roughly four minutes from a band such as
Genesis (at least in the early years) is a surprise, but here they
pull it off wonderfully. “Dusk” is a concise, acoustic- and
vocal-driven experience, with a little bit of Jethro Tull thrown
in. The result: the second best song on the album. The top honor
falls to “The Knife.” Now this is a tremendous showing of prog
rock. A sense of urgency pervades the opening minutes, after which
they pull a Yes-like trick, and slow things down with a few ambient
noises and flute exclamations. From that point on it’s a slow and
progressively more intense build up back to a furious reprise of
the opening refrain. Damn it, I wish the whole album had been like
this.
It all comes down to trimming the fat when you talk about an
album like
Trespass. Now, you may say, “Jeff, this is progressive rock,
the whole point is not to trim songs down.” That is patently
absurd. There are plenty of examples of prog albums and songs that
are say 20 minutes, but just as tight as “The Knife” or “Dusk” is
here. On the other hand, yes there are also countless examples of
over blown monstrosities littering the progressive landscape. My
point is,
Trespass needs a sense of direction and purpose, something
the band’s future albums would have. It just had not happened for
Genesis at this point.