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

This is a great LP, and the first LP where we can definitively state that Gabriel shook off the heavy hand of Genesis weighing upon him and emerged as a major talent in his own right (and, yes, I have all his solo works. III is still, in my opinion, under the Genesis shadow, as great as it is).

San Jacinto remains my favourite Gabriel track of all time - his plaintive vocals capture the seriousness of the subject matter perfectly, and you can tell he means it. Walflower is, I think, even better than Biko in drawing to our attention the mass cruelties perpetrated on prisoners of conscience across the world.

The world music crossovers Rhythm of the Heat and The Family & the Fishing Net both bring fantastic atmosphere to the piece, and the drums at the end of the former are particularly fantastic.

Shock the Monkey was a great single, and I am amazed it was never as big as later tracks such as Steam & Sledgehammer.

Lay Your Hands on Me would perhaps have been better left as a great live curiosity when Gabriel jumped into the audience. Kiss of Life closes the LP with a mad world/jazz crossover and these two tracks just make it a four star review rather than the perfect five.