FOXTROT

In "Foxtrot", GENESIS reached the highest level of excellence in their (from my point of view) first masterpiece. What these guys created was not completely unprecedented since we can get the idea of what they were trying to do through the "Trespass" and "Nursery Cryme", but what I feel about this album is that they took all of their creativity and expanded it much further than anywhen before.

"Watcher of the skies" is delightful, Tony BANKS played a fantastic introduction that was followed with very discrete percussions and an increasing guitar/bass riff that receives Peter GABRIEL's vocals; the melody is unmistakable, the rhythm is not in the mood of a very powerful Hard Rock song, only a very elegant and consistent one that goes and goes for almost seven and a half minutes. Absolutely a classic

"TIme table" is probably the less "experimental" song in the album: to my ears sounds like a filler song with a not very memorable melody, not a good song but definitely not the greatest of the album. "Get 'em out by Friday" brings a little more aggressive rhythm to the album: the bass line is very consistent while the bass and the drums sound as punchy as they could get; it gets to a very relaxed middle part until it gets back to the first melody comes and goes from this several times until it reaches eight minutes and a half.

"Can-utility and The Coastliners" starts as a regular relaxed rock piece until it changes into a much more interesting song with a very intense instrumental middle section that opens the door to a very diverse collection of different musical passages, it is fantastic how well the song swims into this very diverse collection of patterns. "Horizons" is Steve HACKETT's composition inspired and dedicated to J.S. BACH, it was not the first or last time s Progressive Rock band re-arranged a Classical music piece.

About "Supper's ready", well, what can I say about this song that hasn't been said yet? Almost every Progressive Rock band in the seventies recorded at least one twenty-minute (or more) suite, this was GENESIS' first and last and it was amazing: probably they just didn't need to do another long time song like this is because here they did their best and expressed everything they wanted to express. It is absolutely fantastic.

"Foxtrot" offers a very complete menu of musical expressions: from the sweetest soft moments to the most unnerving powerful rock they never played. I do believe this is an indispensable record.

SONG RATING: Watcher of the skies, 5 Time table, 4 Get 'em out by Friday, 5 Can-utility and The Coastliners, 5 Horizons, 5 Supper's ready, 5

AVERAGE: 4.83

PERCENTAGE: 96.67

ALBUM RATING: 5 stars

I ranked this album #36 on my TOP 100 favorite Progressive Rock albums of all time.

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