SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

Genesis were a band throughout their early career where I thought you could look at the cover of the album and apply it to the music. From Genesis To Revelation's cover is simple and nothing special. As is the music. Trespass' cover seems a little raw and simplistic, but is really nice if you have a good look at it. Or listen for the music. Nursery Cryme's cover is really beautiful, and a closer look reveals it is actually very dark. Foxtrot's is majestic and beautiful. And now this one. How would I describe the cover? Very bland and disappointing considering the gorgeous covers of before. Does it apply to the music? Definitely.

This album isn't all bad, or else it'd get my 1 star rating. "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" and "The Cinema Show" are both amazing songs, and amongst the bands strongest. But the rest of the songs range from good but nothing special to downright awful. Although "Firth of Fifth" is touted as one of the bands greatest outputs, it doesn't work for me aside from the intro. Then you have "More Fool Me", which isn't prog and is terrible in every way. Also, "Battle of Epping Forest", which seems like someone took all the average parts of a good album and glued it together very poorly. "I Know What I Like" is an okay, catchy pop song. Nothing more, nothing less. The other two songs are pretty much filler.

So really, I think this is a very underwhelming album. It doesn't possess the true Genesis feel for me and I wonder where the perfection of the albums past went. To me this is the poorest Gabriel-era output aside from the debut. They say not to judge a book by it's cover, but for Genesis I think it fits.