PETER GABRIEL 4 [AKA: MASK, AKA: SECURITY]

At a time when Genesis and Phil Collins had completely sold out to the pop world, Peter Gabriel was rising to new heights with albums like Melt and Security. I had the great fortune to see Gabriel perform the tracks from Security live and was up front at the stage when he jumped into the audience for "Lay your Hands on Me'' so I this album brings back quite a few memories for me. Gabriel was experimenting with world music and had an african band performing with him during the live show where the influences became even more apparent. I'm not sure where this best fits in the classification of prog, but it is really immaterial, as Gabriel had completely broken away from the symphonic prog roots that he had mastered with Genesis, and had created something very new, highly creative, combination of tribal rhythms and rock to form a masterpiece. My favorite tracks here are "The Rhythm of the Heat", "I have the touch", "The Family and the Fishing Net", "Shock the Monkey", and "Lay your hands on me", and "Kiss of Life". Overall this album rates a 9/10, and is deserving of 5 stars.