SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

Genesis is actually a realm I have not yet discovered, and the high amount of acclaim for this album definitely sparked my interest, so I had to see what the fuss is about. I must say that I was really impressed at times and maybe let down a bit in some moments as well. Genesis' huge variety to this album is very interesting in my opinion, however sometimes working and sometimes not.

Dancing With The Moonlit Knight is an incredible song melodically, very cool melodies and strong musical interplay from the band and strong vocals from Peter Gabriel. Tony Banks' and Steve Hackett's contributions to this song are amazing musically and the whole structuring is brilliant. The song has it's slow to fast moments and melodic moments, sliding into eachother without a moment's notice. The transitioning doesn't seem to fit right at some moments however, moods and tempos change oddly. Very good show however. (9/10)

I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) I take it is the single from the album, I can see why, it's a significant change in mood from Dancing With The Moonlit Knight. It's a simpler piece, and a more straightforwardly toned one as well. It's a well-textured song and a more-than-decent one at that. (7/10)

Firth Of Fifth completely adds more variety to the album once again, featuring this time the vocals of (the infamous) Phil Collins, and melodically amazing moments from Tony Banks on the keys. The musical interplay and brilliant composing in this song are amazing, not to mention the great vocal work and verses, being touching at times, and a bit different at others. A real trip, and a real winner as far as I'm concerned. (10/10)

More Fool Me is a slower song, a love song maybe, but I think it doesn't reach a level of corniness or too poppy in my opinion because I think that what the song tries to do actually works, the lyrics are straightforward yet thoughtful and the melody is nice in my opinion, it even works well in contrast to Firth of Fifth. (8/10)

The Battle Of Epping Forest isn't a very strong song, it jumps tones constantly, but mostly it's weak melodies wrapping around nearly entirely spoken lyrics, sometimes players drop playing completely. It acts to me as just an over-ambitious long track on the album. Definitely not successful in what it tries to do. Also it has a corny type of dry humor with the vocals that runs out of life very early on in the 12-minute song. (5/10)

After The Ordeal brings up the word "average" to me, it's a transitional piece into The Cinema Show. It's really nothing interesting on it's own, kind of droning in it's repetitive manner. (5.5/10)

The Cinema Show isn't as good as the first or third track but it's in the same "epic" vein, still melodically, instrumentally and structurally it's not very strong, it's sadly passable, but it has some interesting moments. It's definitely a better attempt at a long track than The Battle Of Epping Forest. (6.5/10)

Aisle Of Plenty is a transitional piece, but I really dig the shuffle Collins does at the end, eh, it's just me, haha. (6/10)

Well there you go, the album is surprisingly weak, and it's hard to get a general opinion on the album considering it has it's great moments and it's bad moments, but mostly it's mediocre moments. The songs here just aren't that great, the first and third tracks being an exception. The songwriting is an acquired taste, but the variety in experimenting with more conventional song structure should appeal to more listeners but overall I don't see what the fuss is here. It's not a very fluid album and the good moments seem to have happened on accident while overviewing the album in retrospect. [Reviewer's tilt: (7/10)

[OVERALL SCORE: 7.1 out of 10 or 3.5 stars (rounded to 4 stars)]