Review of Genesis's Trepass

Released 1970

"Stand up and fight, for you know we are right. We must strike at the lies that spread like disease through our minds"

It was clearly inevitable that my next progressive rock album after Marillion's Script For a Jester's Tear would be by Genesis.

Given the comparisons banded about by the music press about the two bands in 1983, primarily based on Fish's vocal stylings, I was keen to learn more about what had inspired this so-called 'neo-prog' band.

I was drawn to Trepass in particular by virtue of the fact that it was available through the Brittania Music Club. On reflection, given that their entire portfolio couldn't have exceeded 250 albums, Trepass was a surprisingly eclectic inclusion.

The sleeve was, in common incidentally with both previous purchases - The Dark Side of The Moon and Script For A Jester's Tear - devoid of band photographs, except for one of the posters for the former. Given that the rest of record collection almost always included the band in a variety of meaningful poses, I took it that, as the genre unfolded before me, that the music was the thing: more relevant that the people who produced it. Of course, this added a degree of mystery and heightened the expectation.

Immediately I could see why parallels had been drawn between both vocalists. As well as the timbre of their voices, their intonation and phrasing were very, very similar. There was also the same sense of theatre, of 'staging' each song and the same rawness of emotion.

Musically the correspondences between the two bands was not as apparent. Yes, there were long instrumental passages; but those on Trepass were often much longer, more intricate and certainly played on a wider variety of instruments, including six and twelve string guitars, mandolins, harpsichords as well as a myriad of others which I couldn't identify. In addition to vocal effects, the inclusion of taped sound effects there was a choral quality to much of the album that added to the feeling that this was of another time. If I found it otherworldly in 1983, goodness only knows what a sixteen year old would have made of it when it came out in 1970.

As 'The Knife' throbbed through my trusty Amstrad, I wondered how any album could incorporate such a variety of styles: medieval, mystical, lilting romanticism and now a militaristic rhythm with barked sound effects and a spiralling guitar solo. But it did, and it worked wonderfully.

Now with three albums which where all from the prog rock camp, I was entirely hooked and I knew that I wanted to know more about this odd world. But where to turn to next?