PETER GABRIEL 3 [AKA: MELT]

When Peter Gabriel left Genesis to pursue a solo career, he wasn't quite ready yet to go about it on his own. This is evident on his first two solo releases that, despite a couple of strong moments on the debut, lacked direction. Apart from the wonderful Family Snapshot, there is nothing here that is quite as good as Solsbury Hill or Here Comes The Flood from the debut, but the strength of this third album lies in its consistency. Gabriel finally seemed to have a picture, an overall vision of where he was going and what he wanted to do and that made the much needed difference. Peter Gabriel 3 (aka "Melt" due to the cover art) thus was the best Peter Gabriel solo album up to that point (and possibly ever). Even his voice seems to be invigorated by the improvement in the song writing department and the production is also much improved over the weak Peter Gabriel 2 album.

Instead of jumping from one style to another, there is a nice flow to this album with each song more naturally following the previous one. This is still not Prog in any sense of the word and only glimpses of Gabriel's old band can be detected here (and this is really more similar to post-Gabriel Genesis than to anything from the time when Gabriel was in the band). In my opinion, Gabriel never managed to do anything that surpasses (post-Gabriel) Genesis.

Interestingly, Gabriel's old band mate Phil Collins guests on drums here. Larry Fast, Tony Levin and Robert Fripp return to provide synthesizers, bass and guitar respectively. Kate Bush contributes background vocals.

If you want to explore Peter Gabriel's solo career, the present album is a good place to start

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