That young scamp, Peter Gabriel caused much hilarity and confusion by naming his first four solo albums Peter Gabriel. This recent EBay acquisition is the third of these, variously known as Peter Gabriel 3 or Melt.
It's an album I bought on vinyl at the time, and enjoyed immensely, despite being slow to forgive Gabriel for leaving Genesis (I'd mellowed by this time).
So it's an album I know well, and the dark, threatening start to Intruder is very familiar, so it's a chance to listen more carefully, and enjoy the first hint of African influence on Gabriel's music, particularly in the percussion and use of marimba.
Apparently Gabriel put only one restriction on the drummers on this album (Jerry Marotta and Phil Collins), that they use no cymbals, and Collins has said that this made him think about his use of his kit like nothing before, and accounts for some of the freshness of the drumming on this album. It also uses the 'gated reverb' technique, which Collins made great use of later (think In The Air Tonight and Eastenders). I won't pretend to know what it means, despite having just read about it.
No Self Control continues the sinister theme, Gabriel's vocal ably accompanied by more Marimba, and some welcome backing vocals from Kate Bush. Start has always seemed like a lazy sax intro to the following song, I Don't Remember, another song of alienation and darkness, while at the same time being something of a rocker. Family Snapshot is much more minimal, letting Gabriel's narrative of a political assassination, dominate, even when after the first verse, when the full band kick in, increasing the tempo at the moment of action, and it cleverly almost segues into And Through The Wire, a full blooded rock number (with Paul Weller on guitar).
The second half of the album kicks off with the hit single Games Without Frontiers, a catchy song which manages to sound lyrically deep while possibly also playful nonsense. The theme of alienation continues with the stirring Not One Of Us, and into Lead A Normal Life, mostly a very ambient instrumental, with a short gentle verse in the middle, leading to the album's concluding track Biko, an anti-apartheid song, which probably brought details of the 1977 murder by South Africa security forces of activist Steve Biko to a far wider audience than the press had done. It's still a powerful song, book-ended with recordings of songs sung at Biko's funeral, forty years on and a strong end to the album.
This album marked a real shift and maturing of Gabriel's sound as he absorbed influences far beyond those of his Genesis days. It's probably my favourite of his albums.
4* - a great album. Possibly Gabriel's finest.
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