original

This is their third album and the first with new members Phil Collins and Steve Hackett. This record sounds more like Selling England By The Pound and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway than Foxtrot which was their next record. The first song is “The Musical Box” a strange story about a woman who decapitates a man while playing croquet.His spirit haunts a musical box and it tries to seduce the young woman. That song is on the Genesis Live album along with two others from this record. “For Absent Friends” is the first Genesis song with Phil on lead vocals. The last song on side one is “The Return Of The Giant Hogweed” a tongue in cheek song about the noxious plant taking over the human race.Side two has “Seven Stones” a song that has parts that sound like “Firth Of Fifth” and “The Fountain Of Salmacis a song that tells the Greek myth of Hermaphroditus that has some elements of “The Lamia”that I can hear in it. “Harold The Barrel” is another humorous song about a man thinking about jumping off a building. Although I know I had this record while living at home. I must have sold or lost it at some point because the one I have now has a $7.99 price tag on it and the label has a copyright date of 1984 on it. I must have bought it sometime in the 80’s. The cover has water damage from Franklin Street in West Reading were I moved to from Philly in the fall of 1992.The record sounds very scratchy but has no skips. I’ll be on the lookout for a good used copy of this one.