Trollheart

As has been extensively documented, 1976 marked the end of an era for Genesis. Whereas they had begun as a five-piece, then a four, then back to a five, the lineup was by 1972 at least fairly stable with Collins, Gabriel, Hackett, Rutherford and Banks. But after the double concept album he had basically written himself was released, Peter Gabriel began to feel the pressure of touring and in addition to this he had a new family to think about, his wife expecting their first baby. Tensions had simmered during the recording of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, mostly due to Gabriel's Roger Waters-like dictatorial grip on the concept, and the fact that the rest of the band were not really as enthusiastic about the project as he was, and now they came to a head as Gabriel was offered the chance to work with one of his idols, film director William Friedkin, and left halfway through the writing of the album, to work on a film that, in the end, never materialised. On his return, Gabriel was restless and during the tour stated his intention to leave the band.

For a very long time, Genesis had been seen essentially as Peter Gabriel's backing band, which did not sit well with the other members, so when their co-founder and frontman decided to leave, it was more or less accepted in the music press, and among fans, that the band was splitting up, that it could not survive the loss of Gabriel. Although sad to see him go, the remaining four were incensed that people thought they could not continue on their own, and set out to make not one, but two albums in the same year. The first of those would open a new chapter in the story of Genesis, and as one door closed another would open as a new vocalist, frontman and face for the band would emerge.

A Trick of the Tail (1976)

Genesis were determined to show that not only could they survive and create an album without Gabriel, but that they could record an album just as good as, if not better than, any he had been involved in. But first things first: a decision had to be made as to who would be the new vocalist, or even if there would be one. For a short while, the guys considered continuing as an instrumental band, but it was quickly understood this would never work. Their fanbase had grown not just on the strength of their music but on the clever and deep lyrics, and anyway, Genesis up to that point had few instrumental numbers, so the idea was abandoned. Auditions began for a new singer, but none suited, and in the end it was Phil Collins who rather reluctantly agreed to step into Gabriel's shoes.

This presented its own set of problems though, as Collins was the drummer, and it's hard to keep your mind on the rhythms while also trying to sing, to say nothing of not being, literally, a frontman: drummers always set up their kits to the rear of the stage, and it's hard to interact with your audience while stuck behind tom-toms, cymbals and bass drums. So another drummer was recruited for live gigs, this being Bill Bruford, late of King Crimson. With Collins in place then as the new vocalist, Genesis set out to record what would be their seventh album, and their first without Peter Gabriel.

There's a marked difference right away. Although The Lamb was its own beast, up to that Genesis albums had had more than a few epics: nine, ten, eleven minute monsters. The songs here are shorter (though not that much) and there's a sense more of slight commercialism about some of them, so much so that you could see a few as singles, whereas on previous albums there really wasn't this option. The longest track on this is eight minutes, way below the eleven minutes of “The Battle of Epping Forest” and tiny of course compared to the twenty-three minute “Supper's ready”. It's also the first album to show individual credits for songs, rather than crediting them as a band, perhaps a backlash against Gabriel's somewhat tyrannical control of the previous album.

And so we open on “Dance on a volcano”, which perhaps appropriately starts, after a few piano notes, with punching drums, before the vocal comes in from Collins, and to be fair, he doesn't sound too far away from his predecessor, so it's not that much of an adjustment, which would certainly help when they played the older stuff in a live setting. Concerning, it seems, the ascent of a volcano, the song is exciting, uptempo, fun with a sense of danger when Collins warns ”If you don't want to boil as well/ Better start to dance!” The dark humour of his departed bandmate has obviously rubbed off on him, or them all really, as this is a joint effort. It would become a live favourite too, and Collins's opening lines ”Holy Mother of God!” probably reflected at the time the effect his almost-Gabriel voice had on the listeners to the new album. Not such a stretch, after all, and they'd heard him sing on the odd tune as well as add backing vocals, so it wasn't like they had to get used to a totally new voice.

There are of course the instrumental breaks, for which Genesis, as a progressive rock band at the forefront of the movement, had become known by this time, and while Collins has something to prove as the new singer, the rest of the band are obviously anxious not to be seen to be just along for the ride, so everyone is doing their best to be heard. There's a pretty frenetic ending that then slows right down on twelve-string that almost, almost segues into the next song, the only track on the album on which Tony Banks and Steve Hackett collaborate and one of my many favourites on this album. “Entangled” is basically I guess the first ballad, and rides on a beautiful dreamy acoustic guitar line, kind of waltzing along, with swelling synth and the Pro Soloist making those choral vocals again. Strange song, no idea what it's about --- some sort of medical experiments perhaps, or the state of the NHS --- but it's a lovely ballad and has some nice lyric lines such as ”Mesmerised children are playing/ Meant to be seen but not heard/ Stop me from dreaming?/ Don't be absurd!” It ends on a spiralling guitar line accompanied by the Pro Soloist which takes it to the last two minutes of the song. Another concert favourite, “Squonk” opens with a big heavy drumbeat and marches along with a sense of doom and despair, telling the tale of a little creature from folklore (I thought they had just made this up but I read now that it is an actual myth from North America) who hides from view, crying a lot, and when captured can dissolve in a pool of tears. Aaah! This was the first song Phil Collins “auditioned” for the band as the new singer, and the one which won him the poison chalice. It's quite heavy for Genesis, thick bass and wailing synth counterpointing Collins's trundling drumwork, and strong organ punching through as well.

It's the first time since Nursery Cryme that the band have returned to the idea of using mythology in their lyrics, and the first one to be written without Gabriel's input. It's also quite commercial; you could hear this on the radio. In fact, the little squonk could have become a trademark of or mascot for the band. It didn't, but it could have. There's a really great bassline from Mike Rutherford thumping through this, and some interesting effects on the vocals at the end. “Mad man moon” becomes the second ballad, almost. It opens on lonely flute (perhaps a belated tribute to the departed bandleader?) and is then driven on Tony Banks's solo piano with some lovely orchestral synth joining in. Halfway through there's a superb piano and flute combination, then it changes totally, ramping up on a fast rock beat that builds and builds, until it descends and rejoins the original melody. Again, clever lyric in this, the only solo Banks number: ”If this desert's all there'll ever be/ Then tell me what becomes of me?/ A fall of rain?” and ”A gaol can give you a goal/ And a goal can find you a role/ On a muddy pitch in Newcastle/ Where it rains so much/ You can't wait for a touch/ Of sun and sand.”

The first time I heard “Robbery, assault and battery” was on the live album Seconds Out and I was amazed. It's just so outside of what Genesis did that it's almost as jarring as “The Battle of Epping Forest”, though thankfully much shorter (six and a bit minutes) but again it's a role/character piece that allows this time Collins to put into effect his acting skills, and to be fair he does well. It's still not one of my favourite Genesis songs though. It hops along on a breezy, upbeat melody, but given that within the lyric is the murder of policemen by a criminal, this seems a little incongruous, not to say wrong entirely. It does seem to pull in elements of “Cinema Show” and “Firth of Fifth” in the instrumental midsection. Well, I guess you like it or you don't, and I don't.

What I do like is the longest track on the album, which runs for just over eight minutes. “Ripples” is a beautiful ballad about the advance of age and how it's impossible to stop your looks fading away, as Collins sings ”The face that launched a thousand ships/ Is sinking fast, that happens you know/ The waters get below/ Lovelier she was than/ Any that I know.” It again runs on beautiful piano from Banks, and twelve-string and contains both a sublime hook in the chorus as well as a stunning instrumental that runs for almost half the song, so much so that when I heard it the first time, I expected it would last to the end, but then the final chorus comes in. It's very effective. The track that most impressed me when I first heard the album.

Laugh all you want, but the jaunty opening of the title track reminds me of Gilbert O'Sullivan's “Claire”! It's a cute little story of a fantasy being who leaves his “city of gold” one day because he is bored and gets captured by humans. The piano from Banks has great fun with the tune, a very honky-tonk air about it, and when the “beast who can talk” gets fed-up in captivity he breaks out and offers to lead the ones who ”Got no horns/ And they got no tails" to his city. The narrator travels with others in the beast's company, but as he cries out, seeing his city and they ”Thought that maybe we saw/ A spire of gold?/No, a trick of the eye/ That's all” he has disappeared. Great little song. The closer then is titled, appropriately “Los Endos” (translate that, Google!) and is an instrumental review basically of “Dance on a volcano” and “Squonk” with quite a latin beat and it's the perfect way to bookend the album. This, too, has become a favourite live, and for obvious reasons.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

Dance on a volcano
Entangled
Squonk
Mad man moon
Robbery, assault and battery
Ripples
A trick of the tail
Los endos

In releasing this album Genesis, the new Genesis, had proven beyond all doubt that they could exist without their iconic frontman. In fact, for my money, this album stands as one of the very best Genesis albums from any period. The songwriting is tighter, the melodies flow really well, and there aren't any major epics that outstay their welcome. And yet the basic Genesis format is still there, so it's not as if they were suddenly ditching six years of their previous music, but expanding and improving on it. The album also obviously would help to elevate Phil Collins to star status, from being just “the drummer in Genesis” to being the singer, and the frontman, and eventually allow him the confidence and give him the fame to launch his own solo career.

But Genesis weren't finished with 1976, and before the year was out they would release another superb album, which I won't be reviewing here as I have already looked at it extensively in this Love/Hate: Genesis article. Having done what they had never done before, released two albums in the one year, the guys decided to take a well-deserved break from recording as they headed out in support of the album, their second tour in two years, and their next album would not appear for two more years, whereafter there would be yet another change to their lineup, leading to the title of their ninth album.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

During the recording sessions for Wind and Wuthering, Steve Hackett had been more than annoyed to find that most of the suggestions he put forward for songs to be included on the album were rejected, in favour of compositions written by mostly Tony Banks, whose work is all over that album. Added to this, the fact that he was getting burned out by touring (1976/77 had seen Genesis undergo not one but two extensive tours, supporting both albums) and had already made inroads into a solo career, he decided to quit the band in 1977, leaving Genesis as a trio composed of Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks. They would remain this way until their very last album.

...And Then There Were Three... (1978)

Although this would become something of a seachange for Genesis, as they ditched entirely the longer songs, moved away from the more progressive rock direction of previous albums (especially Wind and Wuthering) and towards a more standard rock/pop format, it starts off as you would expect a Genesis album to, with lonely, almost keening keyboards rising into the tune, but as the guitar snarls in (yeah, it does, sort of) the percussion takes a weird kind of syncopated rhythm and we discover that “Down and out” is one of the many songs on this album to move away from fantasy or historical themes, in somewhat the same way as its predecessor did, and more into the real world. As we listen, it's the tale of a man being fired by his boss, who seems to take pleasure in delivering the news personally. It's got a real punch to it, with Rutherford really stepping up as now the main and only guitarist, and Collins well settled in his role as the band's vocalist and revelling in it.

”Don't hedge your bets” suggests he, ”We can make a deal.” Perhaps appealing to the departing/departed Hackett? It's an interesting parallel to their own careers as he sings ”You can't go on like this forever/ So it's with regret I tell you now/ That from this moment on/ You're on your own!” Some great guitar work from Mike, with Tony's keyboards somewhat in the background but still fighting for their place, and Phil's drumming running the whole thing. “Undertow” is a more relaxed song, mostly a ballad, exorting us to live every day as if it were our last. It's a Banks solo, one of four on the album, on which the songwriting duties are pretty evenly shared between the guitarist and the keysman, with Rutherford writing three solo, and Collins only involved on four, and none solo. A lovely soft piano opens “Undertow” with a gentle vocal from Collins, the lyric almost reflecting the album cover as he sings ”Some there are; cold/ They prepare for a sleepless night/ Maybe this will be their last fight.”

It ramps up then on the drums and into the chorus, which has a fantastic hook, one of the best Genesis have written to date. There's amazing emotion in it, as Collins's voice rises in passion as he sings, the vocal falling then at the end of the chorus and back into the softer, lower tone of the verse. It's no surprise that piano and synth rule this song, being composed by Banks, but the next one is a joint effort and, I have to say, one of the single worst Genesis songs I have ever had the misfortune to have to listen to. A real candidate for skipping over, in my case, if ever there was one. “Ballad of Big” sees the guys trying to cash in on the Country and Western folk tale, as they sing of Big Jim Cooley who tried to drive his cattle through Indian infested country, and ”Died like all good cowboys/ With his boots on/ Next to his men.” Yeah, who the fuck cares? After the two opening tracks, this is a serious comedown and unfortunately a pointer to how the second half of the album will go. Not all of it, but much of it.

It starts off well, with a humming piano and synth line, and Tony's Pro Soloist setting up the choral vocal, then guitar takes over and the whole thing just descends into farce. It's not that it's not played well or has no melody, as it certainly does, but come on: a song about a fucking rancher driving his herd across a pass? On a Genesis album? What's next? A song about Mexicans trying to get into .... oh. Wait. We have yet to experience that little gem! No, I just hate this damn song. Luckily it's followed by two standouts, the first being a gorgeous little ballad, the first written by Rutherford on his own, and “Snowbound” returns a little to the fantasy imagery on which Genesis built their early reputation, with the story of a traveller who lies down in the snow one night to awake and find he is a living snowman. The snow has covered him up, and now ”Smiling children tear your body to the ground/ Covered red that only we can see”. It's quite gory in its way, certainly for a Genesis song, and driven on some sublime twelve-string with the Pro Soloist backing it up, a gentle vocal from Collins until he reaches the chorus, where the full horror of what is happening is underlined by his powerful voice as he sings ”Pray! Pray for the snowman!”

Again, a perfect hook in the chorus and some lovely shimmering keyswork from Banks, powerful drumming from Collins punctuating the tune. But Banks has another trick up his sleeve, and “Burning rope” closes out the second side with a triumphant flourish, its rising keyboard line climbing like the very person in the lyric who ”Climbed upon a burning rope/ To escape the mob below” with a real sense of panic and urgency in the music. The piano and synth solo that opens the song is brilliant, one of Banks's best and most jaunty, and ushers it in perfectly. Genesis have certainly acquired here the magic touch, with hooky melodies that should have yielded them several hit singles. Collins is in fine form vocally too,and to mark how much this album changes Genesis, this is the longest song at just over seven minutes.

I have no idea what it's about of course (so they haven't changed that much!) but it seems to nod back to “Undertow” with the idea that we need to live our lives and not let time pass us by and run out on us. When Collins sings ”Don't leave today to tomorrow/ Like you were immortal” the message is clear. Perhaps the burning rope is a representation of our lives, smouldering away, shortening with every passing year, leaving us less and less options? Great guitar solo from Rutherford and a powerful declension into the final verse and chorus and a big bombastic ending.

This is, however, where the album begins to dip, and seriously. The stark ringing guitar that opens “Deep in the motherlode” is effective, but when we find out it's another song of the Old West, with its chorus ”Go West, young man/ On a dollar a day/ Just like your family said” it's to me something of a disappointment. Nevertheless, it's driven by a grinding, bouncing guitar and a thumping bass from Rutherford, and the melody is very engaging. There's a nice sort of low-key midsection, then a great growling chugging guitar from Rutherford before it heads into the final verse. “Many too many”, as I have already intimated in the review of Selling England by the Pound is to me just a rewritten “More fool me”; it's a simple ballad, open and honest and almost painful it the vulnerability shown through the lyric --- ”Thing I find strange is the way you built me up/ To knock me down again” --- and runs on a beautiful piano from Banks, but to me it's more an ELO style song than a Genesis one.

Again, it's a Banks solo number, a nice ballad but it just feels a little simple and almost poppy, perhaps indicating the direction the band would soon head, leaving mostly their progressive rock roots far behind them, and shedding fans in the process. Although I like “Scenes from a night's dream”, and it gets everything jumping nicely after the ballad, I did think originally it was just about some kid's dreams. Now I find it's actually based on a comic book character, called Little Nemo. Hmm. Well it's boppy enough, with a hard rock guitar and the guys certainly have fun with it; it allows them to look back to their previous lyrical subjects ”Dragons breathing fire, but friendly/ Mushrooms tall as houses” --- while cocking an amused eye at them, as if saying “used we to write that kind of stuff?” Rutherford certainly enjoys himself on the guitar, driving the song along joyfully.

Things don't improve when we drop right back down again for the moody, almost film noir “Say it's alright Joe”, a dark, jazzy look at a barfly crying into his drink and telling his problems to his bartender. It's the last solo Rutherford piece, and as he says himself it was to be something of a play on the Dean Martin “set 'em up Joe” idea, turning that on its head. It's very morose though, the antithesis of the previous song. Lovely strummed guitar from Mike runs it nicely, backed up by sombre piano from Banks. Fun fact: in the lyric Collins says ”Gonna build myself a tower/ No way in, no way out” and years later he would rob these lines for his second solo album, when on the song “Thru these walls” he would sing ”Ooh I'm feeling like I'm locked in a cage/ No way in, no way out”.

The sudden change to uptempo with almost orchestral keyboard comes as a shock, and I feel doesn't gell well with the dark, bitter tone of the rest of the song. It also doesn't last, and slides quickly back down into the maudlin pit of despair the song has languished in from the start. I suppose I should be fair here: these are not terrible songs, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that, given how well and how strongly the album opened, pretty much right up to the end of side one, the last four tracks are quite weak in comparison. Luckily the album rallies at the end, with the bouncy but dark “The lady lies”, which warns against rushing in before you check what you're rushing into, as a man is lured into rescuing a lady, who is in fact a demon in disguise, and his fate is sealed. Using her feminine wiles she seduces him, and as Collins declares ”Who can escape what he desires?” Great piano, howling synth and some strong guitar make this another standout, with some of that almost “Enossification” in the voices at the end when the demon reveals itself, grinning ”So glad you could make it/ We've had everything arranged/ So glad you saw fit to pay a call”. Powerful piano ending to fade, and then we're into the closer.

There surely can't be anyone, even those many who hate Genesis, who don't know their most famous and commercially successful single, and “Follow you follow me”, while weak and insipid as a closer, hit a chord with general music fans and took them to the number seven slot in the UK charts, and allowed them their first ever break into the US top 40. The album itself got to number three in the UK, their highest ever placing. The song rides on a soft, gentle guitar melody with crooning synth from Banks, and it's the simplest of simple love songs, which may explain why it did so well when other singles down the years bombed. If anything though it was a clear indication of a change in direction by Genesis to a more commercial, pop-oriented format, this was the first nail, as it were, in the coffin of their progressive rock past. Would the fans then, follow them?

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

Down and out
Undertow
Ballad of Big
Snowbound
Burning rope
Deep in the motherlode
Many too many
Scenes from a night's dream
Say it's alright Joe
The lady lies
Follow you follow me

Whatever you think of them though, Genesis had proved with this album that not only were they survivors, having lost a longtime member (again), but that they could capitalise on their talents, band together and release an album that would be their most successful ever, and even give them a top ten hit, introducing the band, if only through that song, to those outside of their fanbase and outside of progressive rock, something that had really never happened before. “I know what I like” had broken them into the charts but was quickly forgotten after the initial success, and for those outside of the Genesis camp, the band faded away into obscurity. With “Follow you follow me”, they had written a lovesong anthem that would never be forgotten, and produced an album that, while pushing them in ever a more standard rock/pop direction, was certainly consolidating their success and making sure that they would survive the death of prog rock as the seventies drew to a close.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Survival of a different kind was on Phil Collins's mind though as they toured the ... And Then There Were Three...” album, with his wife threatening to leave him and moving to Vancouver with his children. Worried that he was sacrificing his marriage for his career, Collins requested that the band take a hiatus, which they did, Banks and Rutherford both recording their first solo albums, and in Autumn of 1979 they reconvened. Collins had failed to save his marriage, leading to his also releasing his first solo album, a very mostly downbeat affair that nevertheless blasted him personally into the charts without Genesis, and the band began to work on their tenth album.

Duke (1980)

I have always considered this to be a concept album, but I see now that certain songs were in fact part of a thirty-minute suite, but were broken up and distributed around the playing order of the album. Nevertheless, it still kind of works, as the story of one man's attempt to balance his relationship with his career (obviously reflecting the recent travails of the frontman) and it gave rise to some of Genesis's biggest hit singles. It also gave them their first ever number one album on this side of the water, while in the US it also hit their highest position, number eleven.

We open on “Behind the lines”, with powerful drums and piano, and a skittering synth run that continues for about two minutes before Collins comes in with the vocal. It's an interesting point that he also did a version of this on Face Value, his debut solo album, but it was much more jazzed up. It also had a much shorter introduction. To me, the lyrical idea has similarities with a-ha's blockbuster Take on me, with someone finding themselves inside a book (behind the lines) and then having to escape or be ejected from it. It's pretty weird, but it's a nice uptempo song to start off and it segues beautifully into “Duchess”, as "The Duke Suite" begins, Collins employing a drum machine for the first time ever. It's the tale of an old singer who has been unable to move with the times and finds that her audience has grown bored with her. The two contrasting lines show this: ”All she had to do was step into the light/ For everyone to start to roar” later becomes ”Soon every time she stepped into the light/ They really let her know the score.”

The drum machine really makes the song though, with a ticking, pulsing little beat that just drips through the melody, for once taking the spotlight off really any of the musicians, although Banks lays down some gorgeous piano throughout. It's another one with a long instrumental introduction, running for again two minutes plus, drum machine and piano building up to a big explosive drumroll as the vocal comes in, and it fades out on a beautiful little piano into “Guide vocal”, a short piano and strings synth piece which then powers into the first kind of generic rock song, “Man of our times”. As it's the first solo effort by Rutherford, it's not surprising that it runs on a jangly guitar riff, though Banks sprinkles some really nice keyboards through it also. Again, I have no real idea what he's trying to say in the lyric though. It's certainly catchy. Not as much as the next one though, which went on to be one of their singles.

“Misunderstanding” is carried on a heavy, bombastic drumbeat and is one of Collins's solo efforts (they each write two tracks solo, while the other five are group compositions) and a bouncy rhythm, easy to see why it did so well. A love song that's not a love song, with a scent of betrayal and two-timing in it, it has a certain humour about it. You can see how Genesis's songwriting, or I should say commercial songwriting or maybe even pop songwriting abilities are developing here, as just about every track has a real hook and is very memorable. I don't think there's one track on this album that I don't like, and many that I love. “Heathaze” is a sublime little eco-ballad, warning of the dangers of pollution and driven, not surprisingly as it's his second solo contribution to the album, on Bank's forlorn piano. Collins sings ”We shall lose our wonder/ And find nothing in return.” Bleak sentiments in such a lush and beautiful song.

Nothing bleak about “Turn it on again”, which everyone probably knows, it having been a big hit single for the band. With its chunky, choppy guitar intro and pulsing, thrumming and slightly syncopated drums, it stands out as having the most potential for a single, as it did, although it began life apparently as a short bridging song within “The Duke Suite”. ”I can show you” sings Phil, ”Some of the people in my life”, which must have been a godsend line for onstage. Another ballad then in “Alone tonight”, which is the second Rutherford solo contribution, and is a really nice and heartfelt song, with some very soulful singing from Collins, for whom its sentiments probably touch a raw nerve at this point, but I prefer the final Banks number, the superb “Cul-de-sac”. Again, what the hell it is about I have no clue, but it seems to talk about an army of beings underground who come up to attack we on the surface. It's probably allegorical, but even if not, it's a great building melody, and the sense of panic and threat in it is almost palpable, from the moment Collins sings against innocent piano ”Wake up now/ This is the time you've waited for” to the big almost orchestral buildup to the vocal, you can get a sense of something approaching, something bad, and something that is likely to be victorious.

Great piano work and fine guitar riffs drive the song along nicely, with a really laidback little piano solo about halfway before it ramps up again, Collins's voice growing ever more manic as he sings ”Even as the end approaches/ Still they're not aware/ How can you fight a foe so deadly/ When you don't even know it's there?” Big powerful guitar and keys finish with a fine flourish from Rutherford, and we're into the last of the ballads, and indeed the last solo-penned number, this being Phil Collins's “Please don't ask”, the touching story of a husband and wife who meet after being separated, and trying to be civil while avoiding the temptation to say ”Maybe we could try/ Maybe it would work this time”. Banks does a simple but sublime job on the piano here, and the song is an exercise in basic songwriting. Great vocal harmonies, and a depressing but inevitable surrender at the end as both realise they can never be together and the husband remarks ”I miss my boy/ I hope he's good as gold.” Again, surely hitting almost too close to home for the man who wrote the song. Brave and honest.

The Duke Suite then comes back into play as it takes the album to its close, with “Duke's travels” opening on swirling, susurrating synth, bringing in a galloping drumbeat and more upbeat, squeaky synth and fast riffing guitar. Essentially this and the closer are both instrumentals, though there is a reprise of a faster version of “Guide vocal” towards the end. If anything is like the “old” Genesis of the days of A Trick of the Tail, this song retains much of the progressive rock that the band had become known for and helped create, and for that reason it prevents this being a totally pop album, finishing on a strong and familiar note. As “Duke's travels” reaches its midpoint it speeds up, losing the somewhat whimsical turn of melody and becomes harder, more dramatic and powerful in the runup to the reprise of “Guide vocal”. “Duke's end” is a short coda then to this, providing a fast rerun of “Behind the lines”, to bring the album full circle and end very strongly indeed.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

Behind the lines
Duchess
Guide vocal
Man of our times
Misunderstanding
Heathaze
Turn it on again
Alone tonight
Cul de sac
Please don't ask
Duke's travels
Duke's end

In many was, this is the final gasp, if you like, of the progressive rock band we had come to know and love. Sure, there's a few pop songs on it and they became hits, but the “Duke Suite” alone allows it its prog credentials. You can see though, that from this point (in fact, from the previous album) the guys were leaning in a more commercial direction, cutting shorter songs about more down to earth and relatable subjects. I suppose you couldn't blame them: they'd had their first really big hit with “Follow you follow me” and surely they liked the extra attention to them it engendered, to say nothing of the financial advantages of having a top ten single and a top three album. They probably figured progressive rock was by now something of a dinosaur, with some of the bigger bands breaking up, punk feeding on their entrails, and others diversifying and updating their sound. Peter Gabriel had said, before his departure, of the recording of The Lamb that “I didn't want to go down with that Titanic.” He could sense a change in the wind, before anyone else really, which shows how much of an innovator and musical entrepreneur he was, as he proved with his own remarkable solo career. Maybe his former bandmates were recalling that cryptic prophecy, and deciding it was time to launch their own lifeboats?

Sadly, it would lead to pretty much a watering down of what had made Genesis great, as, coupled with Collins's own burgeoning solo career, they would become something of a byword in later years for boredom, selling out and, most cruelly of all perhaps, a lack of adventure. For a band who had pushed the boundaries not only of music but of multimedia presentation in the early years, it was a sad comedown and a sour legacy to end up leaving behind: as Gabriel sang in “The Lamia”, Genesis were about to reap the bitter harvest of a dying bloom.

Their next album would be full-on pop, as they embraced the charts and pandered to a less select and less demanding crowd. I will always hate Abacab, because for me it marks the point at which Genesis really just bent over and took it, and left behind pretty much all of the influences that had made them what they were. With this next album, they were knocking on the door of the Cool Kids Club, which they had always avoided, and asking to be let in. You can read my thoughts on the album here Love/Hate: Genesis, so there's no point in my going into it in any more detail, but two years later they came back with what should have been, and sounded like it might be, the album that would save them.

It wasn't.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

One more suggestion that I would give you is to do an extended exploration of grindcore. You've partially cracked death metal and black metal, and the only extreme metal genre left to you is grindcore. I hated it at first, then liked the odd song/album, until there was a breakthrough fairly recently that I never thought would come, and now I love it. I think the only way to really figure out if you can take it is to immerse yourself in grind until it ceases to become just an endurance test.

__________________

Trollheart

You should. Most of it is nowhere near as bad as "Speed of light" (though there are many flaws, as I pointed out in my extensive review) and I've even grown to sort of like that now. But you certainly need to hear "Empire of the clouds", if only so that you're not the only metalhead left who hasn't.
Believe it or not, I had considered three areas for "What's that all about?" next year, and they were metalcore, grindcore and avant-garde....

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Come to me, my son, to learn about metalcore, lest you go down the forsaken path of Killswitch Engage and Bullet for My Valentine.

__________________

Trollheart

So, metal or grind? I'm only gonna do one.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

There's metalcore you might actually like. Grindcore by its very nature will likely be repellent to you forever.

__________________

The Batlord

And I meant to mention earlier, but can you at least admit that Ripper-era Priest was far superior to Blaze-era Maiden? Jugulator might not have been Priest as we knew them, but it was still a badass album.

__________________

Trollheart

Oh that goes without saying. I would listen to Jugulator again, but not X-Factor. Yuck.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018