SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

Try as I might to like this album, I find it very difficult to listen to this from start to finish without wanting to skip past at least three tracks. This album starts out with three very solid tracks including Dancing with a Moonlit NIght (9/10), I know what I like (8/10), and Firth of Fifth 10/10), which at this point had me believing I was listening to a five star album. By the middle of Firth of Fifth, the music had me in the zone where I was completely taken in by the music to the point I knew I was listening to something very special. However, and unfortunately the next track brought me down to earth like I was crashing from a skyscraper or falling from a moutain top. "More fool Me" seemed to be from another album or maybe this was some pop band impersonation of Genesis. (3/10). Then, another terrible track followed called the "The Battle of Epping Forest" Not only was the music disjointed, the vocals were irritating with almost comic like self mocking, Gabriel himself could not really be taking this seriously? It was difficult to force myself to listen to over 11 minutes of this, and I felt great relief when it was over. (3/10). The next track "After the Ordeal" seems like a perfect title to describe the ordeal one goes through to force themselves to listen to the previous two tracks. This sounded like useless filler but was not quite as bad as the previous two tracks. (4/10). Luckily, I didn't shut down the album altogether and forced myself to listen to the end because "The Cinema Show" was another excellent track that somewhat restored my overall positive opinion of this album as a worthy effort that simply got sidetracked along the way. (9/10). "Aisle of Plenty" is a nice finish that should have been longer but is too short to be particulary memorable. (6/10). Overall, this is a good album, but has too many weaknesses to be a five star album. I could overlook one bad track, and still give this five stars, but three bad tracks out of eight, with three tracks being below average merits a downgrade to an overall rating of 6.5/10 or 3 stars.