The album Phil Collins called the “peak” of his drumming
The art of great prog-rock drumming wasn’t anything Phil Collins took lightly.
Anyone should play what’s best for the song, but even if Collins didn’t consider prog his favourite genre in the world, he had a lot of chops, and he was going to use them on any record that he could be involved with. It might veer off into fusion territory occasionally when working with Brand X, but throughout his time with Genesis, his percussion skills tend to fly under the radar, that is.
That is, when those take time out of there not to slag him off for ruining the group. Collins does have a lot of great moments as a frontman, but when coming after the massive theatrics of Peter Gabriel, there was bound to be a bit of confusion and frustration to think that the drummer was going to give the original singer a run for his money. But for a brief period, Collins had what it took to play both parts.
A lot of fans like to paint history as a case of Collins stepping up and drawing a line in the sand, but A Trick of the Tail is as progressive as any of the records they did with Gabriel at the helm. ‘Dance on a Volcano’ and ‘Squonk’ could have easily gone on records like Selling England by the Pound, but even if they had a lot more room to jam, Gabriel’s time with the group did give them a chance to make greater sweeping epics.
Despite how much they disliked the costumes he wore every single night, it was at least eye-catching for people to get invested in the music. And when working on records like Foxtrot, their epics were long cerebral journeys half the time. ‘Supper’s Ready’ and even their earlier songs like ‘The Knife’ could become mini epics when they played them live, but when looking back on their discography, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway deserves to be in its own unique class.
The record is easily one of the most intense listening experiences of prog’s early days, and that usually meant them going to some weird places. Not everyone is going to enjoy the poetic wit that comes on the second disc where Gabriel talks about making love to snake-like creatures in ‘The Lamia’. But even if you turn off your brain to the insane lyrical passages, Collins is on another level behind the kit.
For all of the great moments that fans like to remember from their pop days, Collins didn’t realise until looking back that he was putting together the greatest performance with the group, saying, “From my point of view as a player, I was amazed at how complicated it was. My drumset wasn’t like a big drum kit, but there was a couple things here, a couple things there, and I was whizzing around it. It was probably the height of my playing, along with the years in Brand X.”
And while that doesn’t mean the rest of the albums following the records that followed their rock opera were automatically lesser, it’s hard to really top this kind of perfection. If there was anything within the general area that could be used as a percussion instrument, Collins would have used it, and even if they were playing downtempo material, he knew how to adapt to every situation with the real kind of rhythmic pulse.
So in many ways, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway serves as the last of its kind in many ways. Yes, they were moving on after this record once Gabriel announced he was leaving the group, but if you listen to A Trick of the Tail immediately afterwards, even Genesis seemed content to work on different avenues of playing that didn’t need to melt the listener’s brain to be finished.
