A FGTR Review

- from International Times, May - June, 1969.

'FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION'
DECCA SKL 4990

It's all so sad that it sometimes makes me sick with disgust (a fact you may have deduced from the article, 'Pop Protest - the media is the Message', IT/56), so many of our native groups and individuals are making records that are musically tremendous and yet record company executives are still putting all the commercial pressure behind crap like one hears on 17 way Family Favourites. 'From Genesis to Revelation' has received almost no publicity from the mighty Decca org., despite the fact that whizz-kid and jam-kicker Jonathan King produced the thing and yet it's a beautiful, entirely valid musical exercise.

The group who performed this work were called Genesis but have had to stop using the title because of the American band of the same name, now they are nameless but individually Peter Gabriel, who sings and plays flute, Tony Phillips, guitarist and zither plucker, Tony Banks, who plays organ and piano, Mike Rutherford, bass and John Silverman [!] the drummer-man. The most noteworthy aspect of the group is that they are all young, from 17 to 20, and are therefore only in the early stages of their musical development which is an awe-inspiring thought because the ideas they express on this album are already streets ahead of so many other groups. The album sets out to recall the memories of adolescence in all their fleeting naivety and it succeeds quite exellently. At times, however, the words border on the pretentious but then one's teens are oftens pretentious anyway, if it needles you though, involve yourself in Art Greenslade's intricate arrangements [!] which are even better than those off the Earth Opera LP.

The group's style is vaguely similar to that of Manfred Mann and Peter Gabriel's singing, particularly on 'A Place To Call My Own', reminds me a little of Roger Daltry's work on 'Tommy'. The album is wholly fresh, though and I advise instant purchase before the group are allowed to plunge into obscurity by a headless British Music Industry.

Mark

"A guy called Mark Williams was the music correspondent for IT, and it was really important to me that we should do well in the paper," said Peter Gabriel. "And he gave us a good review ... it was one of the most exciting moments for me, ever."

Typed up by Thomas Holter, from GENESIS MAGAZINE No: 19, April 1981.