I’ve been into music—mostly progressive rock and jazz—for as long as I can remember. As I’ve mentioned before, my first love was YESSONGS—owned by two older brothers. I loved everything about it—the music, the lyrics, the art. It also just seemed like a super science-fiction project to my very young mind. I would’ve been six when YESSONGS came out.
After Yes, my second loves were Kansas and then Genesis. I encountered Kansas in 1975, sometime around age 8. In fact, living in Kansas, there was no escaping Kansas. Americans don’t often realize it, but Kansans are as proud of being Kansans and their fellow Kansans as Texans are about being Texan; they’re just not loud about it. So, yes, we lived and breathed LEFTOVERTURE and POINT OF NO RETURN.
Genesis, though, didn’t come to me until about 1978, me aged 10, when I fell in love with “Follow You, Follow Me” and purchased AND THEN THERE WERE THREE. That was one of the first albums I ever bought. Followed by DUKE, by ABACAB, by GENESIS. From there, worked backward to TRICK OF THE TALE and WIND AND WUTHERING and, especially, SECONDS OUT. I loved SECONDS OUT. I even had video recorded—through the USA Network—a concert from the SECONDS OUT period with Bill Bruford on drums.
I also really liked Peter Gabriel—especially SECURITY—but for some reason I was reluctant to take a deep dive into Gabriel-era Genesis. Honestly, I have no idea why, except that I so admired the Phil Collins period—especially TRICK and WIND.
I love the Peter Gabrel era of Genesis so much now, however, that I can barely remember a time when I didn’t love them.
So, right before I went to college (fall of 1986), I bought LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY. To state that my mind was boggled, would be an understatement. I knew “Carpet Crawlers” of course, but to listen to it in context truly floored me. At the time (remember, I was 18), I thought Lamb was either the greatest statement of prog ever written or a statement of chaos and madness. Either way, I wasn’t surprised that Gabriel chose to leave after making the album. Clearly, the album means something profound and deep in the history of prog.
It’s a strange album lyrically, as a young Puerto Rican male wants to escape from the corporate conformity imposed at every level of his life. Ah, you “progressive hypocrites.”
When Kevin McCormick—one of my all-time closest friends, a professional classical guitarist, a key contributor to this website—and I first talked Genesis (this would’ve been the fall of 1986), I expressed my love of Lamb, and he thought I was crazy. Only a true Genesis weirdo would like LAMB, just as only a true Yes weirdo would like TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS. It was a funny conversation. Kevin, it should be noted, was the first friend I had who could talk music as much as I could. A high school friend, Joel, came close, but Joel was mostly into college rock and alternative music, not rock or prog. So, his opinion (or, given LAMB, his anti-opinion) really meant a great deal to me. Still, I continued to love LAMB as an act of mad genius.
Jump forward fifty years. . . and the mighty and awesome Dave Kerzner has recreated and recorded a brand new version of LAMB simply called IT. If you don’t know the work of Kerzner, you really should. He’s the great touchstone or fountainhead of our era’s (third wave or beyond) progressive rock. From Sound of Contact, through his solo work (NEW WORLD DELUXE and STATIC), through his work with In Continuum, Kerzner is a genius. He knows how to write the best lyrics, and he also knows how to write the best hooks. But, there’s one thing about Kerzner that often doesn’t get recognized. He’s a perfectionist, an audiophile at the level of Steven Wilson. Don’t get me wrong, Steven Wilson has one of the best ears out there. But, Kerzner’s is equally good.
He just gets sound.
As far as I knew there’s nothing that Kerzner has released that I don’t proudly own. So, when I heard he was remaking LAMB, I was absolutely thrilled. And, there’s nothing about Kerzner’s version that doesn’t satisfy me. From his production to its use of real strings, it’s a glorious masterpiece, so very worthy of its now-fifty-year old original. Kerzner is exactly a year younger than me, and while I don’t know him, I wouldn’t be shocked if he and I encountered the album in much the same way.
In every way, Kerzner has done justice to LAMB. For 1975, it was immaculately produced, but that simply can’t compare to the immaculate production of 2025. IT—Kerzner’s version—replicates the entire album, again always advancing the production, especially with live orchestration. Additionally, Kerzner offers a third disc with alternative versions of the classic tracks.
Even the band of IT is an all-star cast of current prog royalty: Kerzner, Francis Dunnery, Nick D’Virgilio, Fernando Perdomo, Billy Sherwood, and special guests.
Spirit of Cecilia readers, it just doesn’t get better than this. Whether it’s genius or madness, who can say? Except to note, there’s always a bit of madness in all genius, and a bit of genius in all madness. LAMB/IT is smack-dab in the center. Since Kerzner first sent me the tracks via Bandcamp, I’ve been listening obsessively. That obsession—part madness and part genius—will continue for sometime, especially as we approach the end of the semester and with finals starting to loom larger. . . .
To order IT, please click here.
Spirit of Cecilia 
You must be logged in to post a comment.