Hey my baby, don't you know our love is true

Genesis - Foxtrot - 1972

For me, this is the first one in a series of three consecutive albums by Genesis that I absolutely love.
While there were great moments in their previous one, I think that they were not fully there, so to speak.
This one, while still having grandiloquent and a bit derivative moments, manages to showcase everything that Genesis would do well back then: it combines witty and sardonic lyrics, based on literature, social criticism and fantasy, with crazy and brilliant music.
Peter Gabriel's voice seems to have matured a bit between the last album and this one, although at times it still feels a bit lacking in emotion. I'll come back to it in a few minutes.
They were never the easiest band to listen to, even for progressive standards, and at times they still manage to exasperate me with their constant changes in tempo and time signatures, and it feels a bit like they were still a bit overindulgent at moments.
Now, I have no idea how I would feel about this album on the grounds of the first side alone, but then, on the second side they came up with that absolute jewel of progressive rock, the mythical "Supper's Ready". And that song is really all that Genesis did well condensed in 23 minutes of pure brilliance. And yes, I'm aware that "condensed" probably doesn't apply to a 23 minute song.
Now, while I've always been a fan of the Peter Gabriel era of Genesis and never really got into the Phil Collins one (definitely not their 1980s music), something strange always happened to me with "Supper's Ready". I knew it from their 1977 live album Seconds Out, and it's sung by Collins there. And it blew my mind right when I heard it for the first time. And, even now, the version in this album seems a bit flatter to me. And I love Peter Gabriel, but I think this version is a bit too clinical.
Don't get me wrong, clinical or not it's such an insane masterpiece that if I had to only hear this version for the rest of my life, I would be happy.

• "Get'em Out by Friday" is a futuristic tale of greed and oppression. Well, "futuristic" is a manner of speaking. The story starts in the 70s and extends until 2012. The future of the past, at any rate. It's a great song too.
• The last song of what was the first side is called "Can-Utilities and the Coastliners". It's about the legend of King Canute, and the title is a very strange pun, I guess. 
• "Supper's Ready" has seven very distinctive parts, and it deals with a strange journey between good and evil that includes false prophets, lovers, apocalyptic scenes and a flower (a flower?). You'll have to listen to it.
• I found this live version. The audio is from the Genesis Archive box set, and the video is made up of different performances of the 70s. I find that Gabriel's vocals, if a bit less perfect than in the studio version, are more heartfelt. And I had pretty much forgotten his histrionics and crazy looks at the time. It's worth a watch. 

Where did they put it, fella? 

Captain Beyond - Captain Beyond - 1972

This is an album I wasn't even aware I had, and I don't think I had listened to it before. And one thing I like to do lately in cases like this, is to try to find out as little as possible before listening, to avoid any kind of prejudice seeping in, and to allow myself to be surprised.

And surprised I was!

This is a strange album, a mixture of hard rock, progressive and jazz that for the most part works very well and doesn't quite sound like anything else while, at the same time, manages not to sound too strange. 

It's structured in a strange way too, having three medleys and a couple of longer, individual songs, all of which clocks in at roughly 35 minutes total. 

The biggest surprise, for me, was when I finished listening and looked to see who these guys really were and found out that former Deep Purple Rod Evans was in vocals. He does much better here than he did in DP. It also has one former member from Iron Butterfly, and another from Johnny Winter. 

All in all, I liked this one a lot, and was gladly surprised by it. 

• The original release included 3-D artwork, by means of a technique called "lenticular printing", which gives the impression of a hologram of sorts.
• I liked the medleys a bit more than the individual tracks, I think. Still, I'm putting "Raging River of Fear", which is a great song, and probably the best one of the individual tracks.