FOXTROT

"Nursery Cryme" introduced us to the classic lineup of Genesis, and "Foxtrot* shows that lineup solidifying itself, delivering us one of the essential progressive rock albums and the group's magnum opus "Supper's Ready".

Starting with a now iconic mellotron in "Watcher Of The Skies" only to be followed by a 6/4 bass and drums riff, the album introduces us to the celestial and also heavy sound that dominates this record, along with Peter Gabriel's characters, something that dominates the song "Get Em Out By Friday" telling us some weird but fun English story about landlords.

The album also has medieval undertones such as "Time Table" and "Can Utility and The Coastliners", that have a medieval feeling but don't sound overly cheesy, but calm and also heavy.

In those former tracks they are mostly dominated by Genesis two shades, pastoral 12 string passages or heavy progressive passages, even more notable than in "Nursery Cryme". It must be noted that Tony Banks's keyboards are even more prominent, and maybe this is Mike Rutherford most bass-based albums, as he does not play 12 string guitar as much in this record, and Phil Collins is even more tighter, only Steve Hackett is more shy, not having notable guitar leads (until the second half of the record) but contributing to the songs atmosphere with 12 strings and electric guitar licks.

The second half of the record is where things get serious, beginning with "Horizons", a classical like guitar piece with lots of harmonics by Steve Hackett, serving as a prelude to the monumental "Supper's Ready". "Supper's Ready" is one of prog music most acclaimed epics (such as Close To The Edge, Tarkus, Thick as Brick) and that is something I agree, as this song is monumental and showcases not just the group's strenghts but the whole prog movement. "Supper's Ready" is divided in sections easily distinguishable from each other, but only make sense if they are together in the same track, as they are a single story and share musical motifs. The song has multiple bizarre changes in mood, starting as a love song that turns into a biblical and supernatural show, with Christian-Greek imagery all over the place, evolving to a quirky music hall song with more modern english references, that somehow take you to the apocalypse, just to be followed by salvation and the coming of the golden Kingdom, the New Jerusalem. This song is mostly based in the Revelation book from the bible, which by itself is hard to read, but this song is a great resume an introduction to the concept of Revelation. The musical aspect of "Supper's Ready" is what shines, as every section flows naturally with the aid of motifs, and there is every Genesis signature song, an acoustic 12 string guitar trio by Tony, Steve and Mike, odd time signatures and polyrhythms mostly prominent in "Apocalypse in 9/8", tapping guitar and keyboard duels, and most notably, Peter Gabriel's storytelling reinforced by his costumes in their liveshows, really help us to understand what's going on and to put us on the right mood for one of prog's most acclaimed songs.

The "Supper's Ready" suite and classic prog rock sounds from "Watcher Of The Skies" and "Get Em Out By Friday" make the album a masterpiece, and it shows how strong this band was, only to become even better in later records.