Strike Three
Saturday 13 September 2014 • 11:23 PM
For the longest time I assumed that the last great ((and by great I mean the Genesis of the 1970s: quintessential progressive rock, before Phil Collins “pop”-ularized the band in the 1980s, as his solo career began taking off)) Genesis album was Wind & Wuthering. So much so, that I considered Wind & Wuthering to be the last Genesis album period. It seemed fitting– Wind & Wuthering has one of my all time favorite Genesis songs on it, “Afterglow,” which happens to be the last track of the album. Genesis, like most great prog bands, were able to create these beautiful, albeit fleeting, moments in some of their compositions. Moments that kept me coming back for more, yearning for them to last. “Afterglow” is rather unique in that Genesis isn’t afraid to repeat one of these moments– quite the opposite, it’s the core of the entire song, building and building, capping a final crescendo at the end of the piece. It’s a beautiful composition, rivaling Genesis’ best moments in Selling England By The Pound or As The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.
But on a whim a few months ago I played …And Then There Were Three… Released in 1978 after the departure of Genesis’ guitarist Steve Hackett, …And Then There Were Three… holds its own against the band’s earlier repertoire. While not their best, …And Then… is certainly not crap. Though there is some evidence of Collins’ future “pop”-ularization to which I alluded to earlier, there are, nevertheless, some fantastic pieces and moments on the album. Notably, the first two tracks “Down And Out” and “Undertow,” the latter especially. “Undertow” can go toe-to-toe with some of Genesis’ best work on their first two post-Gabriel albums A Trick Of The Tail and Wind & Wuthering.
It’s a testament to Genesis that they were able to produce such an album after the departure of Hackett. Many a music critic spelled the death knell of the band after Gabriel left in 1974. But to everyone’s utter surprise A Trick Of The Tail was not only good, it would eventually become one of Genesis’ best works. Amusingly, some critics penned that Phil Collins sounded more like Peter Gabriel than Peter Gabriel did.
So it’s arguably even more impressive that …And Then There Were Three… is as good as it is. Doubly so considering how awful their future work would be in comparison. Make no mistake, Steve Hackett was as much a vein of the band as Collins. Many refer to Hackett’s first solo album Voyage Of The Acolyte as the “lost Genesis album.” Losing Hackett at the end of the 1970s really was akin to the band losing a limb. My hats off to them for producing quite a listenable and impressive album. I’m enjoying now and I’ll continue to do so in the future.