“They say it all went wrong when I started singing. But really, we all changed. It was a metamorphosis. I think we got better”: Genesis’ evolutionary A Trick Of The Tail, track by track

British progressive rock group Genesis: guitarist Steve Hackett, bassist Mike Rutherford, keyboard player Tony Banks and singer/drummer Phil Collins. (Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images).

From Dance On A Volcano to Los Endos, Prog dissects each track on Genesis’ A Trick Of The Tail and rediscovers what made their first album without Peter Gabriel such an essential listen on release in 1976.

‘You’d better start doing it right,’ sings Phil Collins in opening track Dance On A Volcano. The seventh Genesis studio album, A Trick Of The Tail came with a whole bundle of pressure. With Peter Gabriel departed – but not “to go senile in the sticks,” he told the press – Genesis had questions and doubters to answer. Collins assumed they’d go on as a four-piece instrumental band.