GENESIS

The grand parade of lifeless packaging? Far from it, as this much-delayed blockbuster reissue of one of prog’s most fascinating and frustrating albums finally proves.

Edited by Dave Everley prog.reviews@futurenet.com, Words: Daryl Easlea

Illustration: Pete Fowler

The power of a compelling narrative can propel an album into the realm of myth. The fractious and protracted recording of The Beatles’ White Album, the bloodshot debauchery of the Stones’ Exile On Main Street, the antagonism and power plays that fed into Pink Floyd’s The Wall –all of those records have been given an extra dimension because of how they were created.

So it is with The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. Had Genesis decided in 1974 that their forthcoming double LP should be Mike Rutherford’s suggestion of a musical adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, and had Peter Gabriel not been shown there was life outside his group, it could have all been so different. Instead, they elected to go with Gabriel’s idea: a concept album about Rael, a Puerto-Rican street punk in New York, that represented a congested cross-section of the singer’s brain at the time. Like his full-to-bursting story on the album’s inner gatefold, he also swamped the music with words, words, words. Fifty years on, this detailed and diffuse double enduringly divides the Genesis devoted –as will this belated 50th-anniversary box set itself, with banks of keyboard warriors already hammering out how much better they would have done at compiling arguably the most anticipated reissues of the decade so far.

Like the best of Genesis’s work, this box is both musical and magical. The super-deluxe edition features a remaster of the album by Miles Showell from the original 1974 tapes, various mixes of the original album (including an Atmos mix overseen by Gabriel and Tony Banks at Real World, although that was unavailable to hear as Prog went to press), plus a complete January 1975 live show, an assortment of unreleased material and a hefty coffee table book on the making of the album with input from all five bandmembers.

The new remaster is crystal-clear –just listen to the nuances such as Tony Banks’ electric piano shadings on In The Cage’s breakdown, Steve Hackett’s attacking guitar chops on Counting Out Time and Phil Collins’ almost doo-wop backing vocals on Lilywhite Lilith. Mike Rutherford’s playing is exceptional throughout, and given the inner turmoil and how late the recording was running, Gabriel’s singing is up there with the best of his career.

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway: 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition

RHINO/CRAFT

"Like the best of their work, this box is both musical and magical."

Recompiling double albums as single discs is a time-honoured pub pastime. In the case of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, it’s easy – LP one contains some of the greatest and most inventive music the group ever came up with and the second album doesn’t. However, in this case both need each other and are impossible to edit. Given that the idea of the group doing a double album was so that they could stretch out and get all of their ideas across, there are few albums as crammed as Lamb. There’s little time to marvel over a solo or arrangement before we’re propelled on to the next sonic and lyrical puzzle to unpick.

The live recording comes from a show at LA’s Shrine Auditorium on January 24, 1975, during the second US leg of the Lamb tour. Widely bootlegged before being made available on 1998’s Archive 67-75 box set, and here overseen by longtime Genesis sound keepers Nick Davis and Geoff Callingham, it’s a delight. By this point, both group and audience were comfortable with the material and, aware that Gabriel’s departure was on the horizon, enjoying it while it lasted. It also reinstates Watcher Of The Skies and The Musical Box, which were absent from the previous box set version. Both sound almost prehistoric next to the Lamb material, even though they’re only three and four years old respectively.

The three download-only outtakes offer a glimpse into the group’s working methods. On the title track and Fly On a Windshield, they sound almost like a jam band, while The Chamber Of 32 Doors sees the singer run riot with the ‘Gabrielese’, the scat singing he would perform while lyrics were gestating. If nothing else, it makes clear why Banks must have been so relieved when Phil Collins took over as lead vocalist, if only so his masterstrokes weren’t constantly sung over.

The hardback book is full of previously unseen photographs (the shot of Gabriel modelling for the slide show is wonderful) and is beautifully assembled. As Guardian journalist Alexis Petridis interviews all five members, marvel again at the ridiculous ambition of a group of young musicians, none older than 24, who came up with this. It underlines again just how it gave Gabriel little option but to leave the band, as there was simply nowhere left for him to go.

With all its many component parts and forward-thinking modernism, this most celebrated yet problematic Genesis finally receives the release it deserves. It’s even better than the Rael thing.

BEAT

BEAT LIVE INSIDEOUTMUSIC

Adrian Belew and co re-animate King Crimson’s 80s gems live.

In 2017, while part of the live production of Celebrating David Bowie, Adrian Belew and the show’s producer Angelo Bundini got chatting. Wouldn’t it be great, Bundini enthused, if Belew could put together a live band performing songs from Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair, the celebrated King Crimson triptych that the guitarist and vocalist made with Robert Fripp, Tony Levin and Bill Bruford between 1980 and 1984?

"A virtuosic, deeply musical homage to Crimson’s legacy."

As Crimson’s founding member, Fripp was consulted. He eventually declined involvement, but gave Belew his blessing to proceed. The pandemic and the conflicting tour schedules of eminent in-demand musicians further stalled proceedings, but by 2024 Belew’s dream line-up was good to go. Tony Levin – who else? – would play Chapman stick, Tool’s resident Bruford/Crimson aficionado Danny Carey would handle drums, and Steve Vai – a big fan of Fripp’s 1979 solo LP Exposure – would step up on second guitar alongside frontman Belew. “Crimson’s music has a complexity that scratches an itch I have,” Vai explained to YouTube’s Rick Beato in 2024, chatting about the challenges of nailing Fripp’s “relentless” riffage on Discipline and more.

Documenting the band’s September 2024 show at The Theater On Broadway, Los Angeles, BEAT LIVE pays truly virtuosic, always deeply musical homage to Crimson’s legacy. The deluxe Blu-ray version has beautifully filmed footage of the entire show, and is hugely entertaining from the moment a grinning Belew appears in a salmon pink suit and pork pie hat. Buzzing on the live resurrection of such deliciously tricksy tunes as Neal And Jack And Me, not to mention Three Of A Perfect Pair material that was never played live back in the day, BEAT also sound supremely relaxed here, as can be garnered from Belew’s banter with the crowd.

Vai and Belew coax alien love secrets from their guitars, while Carey pounds on Bruford’s old roto toms, as gifted to him by Belew. There’s an audible joy in BEAT’s live performance, which, together with their ability to segue from pachyderm-impersonating dissonance (Elephant Talk) to languorous ambience (Matte Kudasai), ensures they never sound remotely indulgent. BEAT’s combined chops are next level, but it’s all done in the service of some wonderfully daring and unique music that Belew’s articulate, stream-of-consciousness lyrics pull in a more art-rock direction. And Vai, we’re reminded, is often at his very best while serving the music of others.

Belew is clearly in his element here, thrilled that he and Levin’s work with Crimson is alive, kicking and evolving.

JAMES MCNAIR

AMORPHIS

Borderland REIGNING PHOENIX MUSIC

Finnish prog metal veterans tweak a familiar sound.

Amorphis’s early trajectory was not dissimilar to that of Opeth. Both formed in 1990 and morphed from death metal to a more progressive, folk-tinged form. Unlike their Swedish neighbours, Amorphis never ditched the metallic elements and settled on a formula of sorts around the time of Tomi Joutsen’s installation as vocalist on 2006’s Eclipse.

They haven’t stood still since then, but, having hit upon an effective sound, they’ve subsequently been content to tinker around the edges. Borderland continues in the same vein. There are plenty of mid-paced tracks mixing guttural growls with strong melodies and a coverlet of intricate textures. But there are also outliers that catch the interest by deviating from the expected. Light And Shadow is a radio-friendly slice of lyrical poetry set to ear-caressing hooks, while Dancing Shadow even flirts with a disco beat. At the other end of the spectrum, Bones brings a huge stomping groove to bear and is one of the heaviest things they’ve presented in a while.

Borderland reins in the progressive touches, presenting a more streamlined take, but longtime fans will find plenty to love.

PT

ARCADEA

The Exodus Of Gravity RELAPSE

Mastodon’s singing drummer takes another prog-synth trip into space.

Arcadea were originally the brainchild of Zruda guitarist Core Atoms, but there were parts of their sprawling self-titled 2017 debut album that sounded like an alternate-universe Mastodon – no surprise given that the other half of this duo is the latter’s drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor. The complex structures, propulsive rhythms and future-cosmic lyrical concepts were all recognisable in Arcadea’s music, but the heavy guitars and lurching bass had been replaced entirely by synths.

Eight years later, Arcadea’s second album is still dominated by those icy synths and another acid-lashed concept – a new type of consciousness is born from a marriage between AI and strange biological spores. But The Exodus Of Gravity moves away from the expansive arrangements of the debut, and brings in more direct, danceable grooves. Arcadea are no longer content to blow minds: now they want to fuel the party with a psychedelic punch. Prog metal is played on spiralling keys but are outnumbered by wobbly hallucinogenic dance anthems like Fuzzy Planet and Planet Pounder. Gravity has fled and levity stands in its place.

PT

ASYMMETRIC UNIVERSE

A Memory And What Came After INSIDEOUTMUSIC

Italian siblings combine heaviness with strings and sax appeal.

Italian multi-instrumental brothers Nicolò and Federico Vese stake their claim where djent and fusion overlap on their first full-length album, following EPs in 2023 and 2019. But while the duo’s enthusiasm for drop-tuned, staccato riffs, odd measures and polyrhythms risk producing mathematics not music, Asymmetric Universe expand their palette well beyond cookie-cutter djent heaviness with strings and horns. Guest saxophonist Jared Yee takes a spirited solo in Reaction – Overthrow, and the violin and cello in Feather On A Glass add colours and textures. Federico’s fleet-fingered guitar solo in Dancing Through Contradiction suggests Mike Stern jamming with a prog metal band.

Led by the piano, the wide-open vibe of Recovery – Thirst For Stars provides a mid-album respite from riffing, while Opaco allows Nicolò to have a major flex on the bass. Those Who Stay is a highlight with the Vese brothers utilising every timbre at their disposal from shimmering strings and warm horns to percussive guitar. Instrumental metal is enjoying a boom, but Asymmetric Universe possess the vision and compositional acumen to stand out.

DW

DAVE BAINBRIDGE

On The Edge (Of What Could Be) OPEN SKY

Varied double album from the Iona and Lifesigns multi-instrumentalist.

Dave Bainbridge’s solo career away from Iona, who are seemingly on long-term hiatus, has taken various twists and turns over the last 20 years. But this unassuming and underrated musician has rarely failed to delight, and this remarkable double album melds all these textures and influences into one inspiring package.

Playing an astonishing array of fretted and keyboard instruments himself, Bainbridge has also gathered a remarkable cast around him, including virtuoso drummer Simon Phillips, Lifesigns bassist Jon Poole, plus Iona’s Troy Donockley and Frank Van Essen, whose uilleann pipes and violins respectively deliver some of the album’s gentler textures. Singers Sally Minnear and Rachel Walker add an ethereal touch, while Iain Hornal and Randy McStine handle the meatier vocals.

The music is beautifully eclectic, with the proggier moments sometimes channelling ELP, while a jazz-fusion influence adds complexity and depth on the epic Fall Away.

Although much of the lyrical content is of a Christian nature, its historical approach to the subject should allow secular listeners a way in without feeling they are being preached to.

SL

BARRENS

Corpse Lights PELAGIC

Scandinavian trio deliver ambience and aggression in abundance.

Aspin-off of Swedish post rockers Scraps Of Tapes, Barrens announced themselves with 2020’s debut Penumbra, bagging support slots with Mogwai and God Is An Astronaut along the way. Where their parent band hew close to the latter two, Barrens haunt the heavier end of the atmospheric rock spectrum.

Corpse Lights takes the sound they honed on its predecessor and beefs it up, pumping it full of steroids. A Nothing Expands sounds like a brighter, but no less muscular, version of their countrymen Cult Of Luna, decked with cascading clean guitars and an unrelenting pulse, growing darker and dreamier as it develops. Sorrowed, meanwhile, is tension and release done right, from a bleak bass-driven intro to its crushingly dense final throes, its tumult is finely paced.