FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION

A very ambitious and original debut. This album has some things in common with their later work, as well as with the subsequent releases, but in overall sound is unique to their canon. I like both the folky sides of it like "In Hiding" and "Fireside Song" and the more dark groove- garage rock of "In The Beginning" and "The Serpent." The playing in general offers only a hint of what they could do later, but Peter Gabriel's voice is already awakeningly emotive. The band is actually very good at playing these types of songs at this point, and they come together with the vocals to make pure magic in numerous places, especially in "In the Beginning" during the part where Peter Gabriel sings "That is the sound of a newborn world/and the light from the curious sky/It has begun/You're in the hands of destiny." It's very intriguing to hear a concept album about creation that references things from The Bible to romantic love to the crusades to reincarnation. There's even what I perceive to be a few anti-establishment lines in the song "Am I Very Wrong?" when Peter sings about "the curse of the happiness machine." They weren't yet virtuosos, but Tony Banks plays competantly, and Mike Rutherford's bass is very pronounced and has a very good tone. A lot of people complain about the string section and brass ruining the songs, but I think they actually helped some of them: I cannot imagine "In Limbo" or "Where the Sour Turns To Sweet" without their heralding counterparts. Maybe they could have been used on less of the songs, though. The drumming of Chris Stewart and John Silver is more rooted in 60's rock and pop than what you may be used to hearing in Genesis music, but I get a lot out of the snare fills in "The Serpent", personally. And Anthony Phillips is a great guitarist, but his electric playing is so buried in the mix it's almost not even noticable on this album. I wouldn't call From Genesis To Revelation an absolute masterpiece, but it is much better than often given credit for, and it has a nice song order flow that makes it very easy to listen to.