SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

Containing three of Genesis' strongest songs in Dancing WIth the Moonlit Knight, Firth of Fifth and my own personal all-time favourite, The Cinema Show, this is an easy pick as one of the band's strongest albums from their entire canon.

The shorter songs are rather good too - the 70s prog-pop of I Know What I Like and the wonderful short ballad More Fool Me show a band that weren't too full of themselves to write chart-friendly material for the time.

Where the album suffers in retrospect is the ambitious Battle Of Epping Forest - ambitious in that it takes around 10 minutes to tell a tale of a gang fight. Lots of vocal characterisation by Gabriel, but it adds little beyond a humourous piece to the album overall but compared to the likes of Cinema Show is overlong filler.

Otherwise, lyrics are by and large excellent, the musicianship of the highest order and the whole composition will add to, rather than detract from, a rock collection irrespective of preferences for prog specifically.

Overall, 4/5, the top rating being reduced because of - yes - that stramash in Epping Forest!