Nursery Cryme

 

Nursery Cryme came our in 1971

Track Listing

1. The Musical Box

2. For Absent Friends

3. The Return of the Giant Hogweed

4. Seven Stones

5. Harold the Barrel

6. Harlequin

7. The Fountain of Salmacis

Genre - Progressive Rock

And the classic lineup is here.  This group would go on to release 4 albums before Peter Gabriel called it quits.  I'm not super familiar with this album so mostly going in blind here.  I dont have super high hopes since my main complaint about Tresspass is how it feels like bedtime music and this one's name is a play on words for nursery rhyme.

The Musical Box - Starts off sleepy, the guitar work is immaculate, just boring.  We finally pick up around the 4 minute mark and it gets much faster paced.  They chose to do a back and forth fade with the guitar solo which I dont like, but overall its excellent.  Cut the first 3 minutes off and this might be my favorite Genesis song so far. 

For Absent Friends - I think this embodies everything I hate about Genesis's slower parts.  It has potential, it sounds decent, but they bury the vocals in the mix and the song doesn't actually go anywhere.  It's like they don't trust Gabriel enough to carry a song like this.  There's no point to this song.  

The Return of the Giant Hogweed - Finally.  They start out with a powerful guitar riff and build a song around it.  I have no idea what they're singing about but the song itself is strong enough to not need the lyrics 

Seven Stone - And now the opposite.  Another sleep inducing intro.  At like the 1 minute mark the song picks up and starts to get good.  But sadly that doesnt last and they go back into lullaby mode.  The chorus (I guess?) comes back, but by this point its too little too late.

Harold the Barrel - What an absurd song.  The piano riff is dumb, Gabriel is practicing rapping over it, and the guitars underneath sound terrible buried like they are. I just do not care for this at all.

Harlequin - Basically just For Absent Friends again, but this time with a chorus.  The Chous is cool.  I like the guitar here.  But still pretty weak.

The Fountain of Salmacis - Decent song.  I don't really think the drums and guitar mesh well in the first half of the verses, it kind of just feels like theyre doing their own things.  But the chorus is good and the solos are excellent.  Collins's drums here really stand out too.

Overall not a bad album. I think the mix is shit, the quiet parts are too quiet so trying to find a single volume to listen to this at is difficult.  The band is making strides, with the guitar work continually improving and Collins adding some excellent drums.  I still dont like they nap time quality they inject into half the songs, but I'm beginning to suspect they like everyone to be half asleep.

With 2 green and 2 red songs it sits in the same range as Tresspass.  Decent but with some major flaws, although I think the bad parts here aren't quite as bad as Tresspass's bad parts.

3.5/5