NURSERY CRYME

I am rather surprised that this album has recieved so many 5 star reviews. Each album from Nusery Cryme to Wind and Wuthering has such a distinct sound that I find it impossible to acurately rank my favorite ablums of this era. They all achieve a musical level of creativity and sensible virtuosity that is hard to find. The one exception in this era would have to be Nusery Cryme. It sounds like they have the basic foundations of their progressive and melodic aspects of their music formed, but are not quite able to bring them together nearly as effectively as they would do on Foxtrot. "Fountain of Salmacis" was the first Gabriel-line up song I ever heard. It is certainly an interesting song and is fun to listen to the first few times through, but it just doesn't hold together time after time like "Get em out by Friday" or "Battle of Epping Forrest." Songs like "Harold the Barrel" and "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" sound like they're on the right track, but don't have the cohesion and flow that later Genesis songs would capture so well. Probably the only reason I even gave this album a three is because I know what these rough songs would later mature into. If you have the other prog Genesis albums you should pick this one up, but its probably not a good idea to introduce someone to Genesis or progressive rock in general with this album.