They started out as a teenage combo formed at a posh college puddin’ private school outside of London. Back then, they had a different guitarist, and were years away from meeting Phil Collins. With the exception of Peter Gabriel’s voice and the occasional Tony Banks piano flourish, From Genesis To Revelation doesn’t sound like the band they’d become. If anything, they sound a lot like the Bee Gees from the same period, with pretty string and horn arrangements tarting up the space.
The music is adventurous pop, and such tracks as “Where The Sour Turns To Sweet”, “The Silent Sun” and particularly “In The Wilderness” (with its “music, all I hear is music” chorus) are nothing to be ashamed of. Only the distorted introduction of “In The Beginning” gives a hint at the experimentation to follow; the rest of the tune is fairly straight, with phased effects on the acoustic. Their manager apparently had the idea to link the tracks and repeat themes, so there’s a hint at some of their hallmarks down the road.
Overall, it’s a nice album, fairly unobtrusive and not at all embarrassing. But it’s also a little ordinary. Nobody bought it when it was first issued, and only after key stages of the band’s worldwide success (as well as that of its lead singers) did it get wider exposure, getting its first release in the US in 1974, and eventually under different titles (such as In The Beginning and And The Word Was) and in different sequences, usually involving some of the contemporary singles. Pointedly, none of these have ever been sanctioned by the band.
Genesis From Genesis To Revelation (1969)—3
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