Genesis Trick Of The Tail CD

TRICK OF THE TAIL was Genesis' first LP after the departure of Peter Gabriel.
Genesis: Phil Collins (vocals, drums, percussion); Steve Hackett (electric & 12-string guitars); Tony Banks (12-string guitar, piano, keyboards); Mike Rutherford (12-string guitar, bass).
Engineers: David Hentschel, Nick Haddock Bradford.
Recorded at Trident Studios, London, England in October & November 1975.
After Peter Gabriel departed for a solo career, Genesis embarked on a long journey to find a replacement, only to wind back around to their drummer, Phil Collins, as a replacement. With Collins as their new frontman, the band decided not to pursue the stylish, jagged postmodernism of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway -- a move that Gabriel would do in his solo career -- and instead returned to the English eccentricity of Selling England by the Pound for its next effort, A Trick of the Tail. In almost every respect, this feels like a truer sequel to Selling England by the Pound than Lamb; after all, that double album was obsessed with modernity and nightmare, whereas this album returns the group to the fanciful fairy tale nature of its earlier records. Also, Genesis were moving away from the barbed pop of the first LP and returning to elastic numbers that showcased their instrumental prowess, and they sounded more forceful and unified as a band than they had since Foxtrot. Not that this album is quite as memorable as Foxtrot or Selling England, largely because its songs aren't as immediate or memorable: apart from "Dance on a Volcano," this is about the sound of the band playing, not individual songs, and it succeeds on that level quite wildly -- to the extent that it proved to longtime fans that Genesis could possibly thrive without its former leader in tow. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
This was Genesis' first album following the departure of vocalist Peter Gabriel. After ascending the heights of conceptual progressive rock on the preceding THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY, Genesis was left between a rock and a hard place, trying to define its identity anew. With the odds against them they put in a fine showing on TRICK OF THE TAIL. The general musical mode is similar to that of LAMB--longish songs with well developed structures and arrangements and a straighter rock feel than the band's early work.
Lyrically, the band didn't attempt to equal Gabriel's conceptual mastery, choosing instead to tackle discrete subjects on each song; "Squonk" is about a mythical beast, "Entangled" centers around an unpleasant hospital stay. Phil Collins, technically a better vocalist than Gabriel to begin with, steps up admirably as lead singer (he'd already sung lead on a couple of earlier Genesis tunes), but despite the popular myth he didn't take over the band. He receives co-writing credit for only two songs on TRICK OF THE TAIL, an album that's very much a group effort.Q (12/94, pp.162-3) - 3 Stars - Good - "...notable for the title track and the tender ballad `Ripples,' but a momentum was carrying them away from anything like a cutting edge and nearer and nearer to the big bucks..."
Mojo (Publisher) (3/01, p.82) - "...Largely written without thought as to who might sing it....Collins stepped into the breach - despite originally suggesting they proceed as an instrumental act."