From Genesis to Revelation is the album almost nobody heard — a gentle, string-laden pop record made by five schoolboys, released in 1969 to near-total indifference, and bearing only the faintest hint of the progressive rock giants Genesis would become. It remains a fascinating, flawed curiosity: the sound of a great band before they knew who they were.

The short version

From Genesis to Revelation (1969) is the debut album by Genesis, recorded while singer Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks, guitarist Anthony Phillips and bassist Mike Rutherford were still pupils at Charterhouse School, with John Silver on drums. Produced by Jonathan King, who also named the band, it is a soft, orchestral pop record loosely themed around the history of mankind. It sold only a few hundred copies, and the band soon walked away from both producer and label.

Five schoolboys and a producer

Genesis began in 1967 at Charterhouse, a boarding school in Surrey, when two rival school bands merged — Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford from one, Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks from the other. They thought of themselves as songwriters rather than performers, and their demo tape reached Jonathan King, a former Charterhouse pupil then working as a producer. He signed them to Decca, gave them the name Genesis, and set about turning them into a pop group. Two singles flopped; original drummer Chris Stewart left and was replaced by another schoolmate, John Silver. The album itself was cut in about ten days at Regent Sound, squeezed into the summer holidays of 1968.

The sound

This is not a progressive rock album. It is soft, melodic English pop of the late 1960s, closer to the Bee Gees or the Moody Blues than to anything the band would later record, with brief instrumental passages linking the songs into a loose whole. Peter Gabriel’s voice is already unmistakable, and the writing shows real promise. What smothers it are the orchestral arrangements: Jonathan King had lush strings and brass overdubbed after the sessions, without telling the band, who discovered the change only as the record appeared. Anthony Phillips in particular was dismayed. Beneath the syrup, though, the shape of something better is audible.

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The songs

The album carries a loose biblical theme, tracing the story of mankind — though the band later admitted the concept was mostly a scaffold to help them write. It opens with the brisk ‘Where the Sour Turns to Sweet,’ and the strongest moments come with the moody ‘The Serpent,’ the stately ‘In the Wilderness,’ the anthemic ‘The Conqueror’ and the surging ‘In Limbo.’ The wistful ‘Silent Sun’ — their first single, and the one track featuring original drummer Chris Stewart — was written, by the band’s own admission, to please their producer. Short linking passages quote two hymns the boys knew from school.

Reception and legacy

The album failed completely. An American group already used the name Genesis, so the band’s name was left off the sleeve entirely, leaving a plain black cover bearing only the title — with the result that many shops filed it under religious music. With no promotion behind it, it sold around 650 copies. Genesis parted ways with both King and Decca, turned professional in late 1969, recruited drummer John Mayhew and signed to Charisma, where Trespass began their real story. Rutherford has since acknowledged that, for all their disagreements, King gave them a chance almost impossible to come by. The album has been reissued endlessly ever since.

The verdict

From Genesis to Revelation is strictly for the curious and the committed. Newcomers should begin with Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot or Selling England by the Pound, where the band Genesis became is fully formed. Taken for what it is — a pleasant, over-orchestrated pop album by gifted teenagers — it has genuine charm, and hearing Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks at seventeen is a real pleasure. Come for ‘The Serpent’ and ‘In the Wilderness,’ and enjoy a glimpse of one of prog’s greatest bands taking its very first, uncertain steps.

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