Genesis - Seconds Out: Half Speed Master 2LP (180g)

Long Out of Print 1977 Live Album Recorded in the Wake of Peter Gabriel's Departure and Phil Collins Taking Over Frontman Duties!

Prior to recording the first of their two 1976 album, Genesis decided that their drummer, Phil Collins, was the ideal candidate to take over for Peter Gabriel as lead singer – something that must have surprised Collins as much as it did the rock press and Genesis fans. Collins, of course, wound up being just fine, showing versatility and range through A Trick of the Tail and the gorgeous Wind & Wuthering later that year. The tours behind those records were high-quality affairs, if 1977's live album Seconds Out is any indication. The album shows Collins wholly graduated into his new role, and the remainder of the band – guitarist Steve Hackett, keyboardist Tony Banks and bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford – perfectly acclimated to the change.

You can hear it immediately on "Squonk," where the song's atmospheric intro doubles as the concert's intro, immediately grabbing the audience and lifting it on a straight-ahead tempo and an undercurrent of synthesizer. On A Trick of the Tail, it spoke of where the band might go as a four-piece; on Seconds Out, it gives the audience the good news about where they're headed that evening. There is so much beauty in Wind & Wuthering's "Afterglow," it's hard to contain it in a mere four-plus minutes. The melody goes directly to the heart and wraps around it, as any great music can. The mock-choral conclusion gives the song a majestic ending, drawing Side One to a close and setting up the listener for the start of Side Two, a lovely run through "Firth of Fifth," with its extended middle section, in which Banks and Hackett trade probing, expressive solos. Of course, there's all 24 gloriously proggy minutes of "Supper's Ready," with its tempo shifts, dynamic passages, funny voices and abstract storytelling. Banks' keyboards – layers of them – set the tone and set the song in motion.

By the time Seconds Out was released, Hackett had left Genesis, leaving the Banks/Collins/Rutherford trio that would constitute the band for nearly two decades, until Collins' departure in 1996. Seconds Out is the last expression of early Genesis, and the first indication of the success that would follow. 180g vinyl 2LP.