THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY

In my view, the Peter Gabriel-era Genesis peaked with the masterpiece Selling England By The Pound in 1973. The following year they released this conceptual double album with a running time of close to 95 minutes! I think it is fair to say that this album is very different in comparison with earlier (and later) albums by the band. While a few songs, like The Cage, Carpet Crawlers and The Colony Of Slippermen, are in the style of earlier albums, many songs are in a different and more direct and concise style - a precursor to the more commercial direction both Gabriel and the band would take in the 80's? Or maybe a return to the 60's Pop of From Genesis To Revelation?

Double albums are always a tricky business and I'm sorry to say that, despite several very good moments, this album suffers from some incoherence and inconsistencies. It could have been reduced to a single album, possibly making it more unified. But even the best moments here are behind the greatness of earlier (and some later) albums. The story behind the album is very hard to follow and as such it fails to hold the rather disparate music together. As I said, there are some very good moments here, but also some rather weak ones that bring the album down a bit.

There are some very nice guitar dominated instrumental tracks like Hairless Heart and Fly On The Windscreen (the latter is only mostly instrumental), both of which have been played live by Steve Hackett and his solo band in recent years. Other instrumentals like The Waiting Room are ambient noise-experiments that I find totally useless for the most part. I guess that Brian Eno, who contributed to this album, had more than a hand in that one?

Peter Gabriel would leave the band after this album, and they would continue without him, going on to make, in my view, far better albums like Trick Of The Tail and Wind And Wuthering (two of my all time favourites).

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is, in my opinion, the least good Genesis album out of the nine they did from 1970 to 1980 (i.e. from Trespass to Duke). Still good though, but not more than that.

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