...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...

I can't think of another prog album that seems to have been kicked around over the years more than ...And Then There Were Three by Genesis. Its as if the band's remaining three members, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins, cast off their prog muse and concocted some sort of pop confection to rival albums and pop hits by Abba. All because an accessible song form the album titled "Follow You, Follow Me" became a top ten hit single.

When one listens to these three members laying out some of Genesis' trademark musical styles such as low, almost spoken, lead vocals contrasted with very high vocal choruses, along with a plethora of heavily strummed guitar chords or delicately played acoustic and electric guitar arpeggios, supported by an arsenal of keyboards and extremely busy drum work, it's hard to believe that the naysayers actually listened to the same album.

The lead off track "Down And Out" is absolutely magnificent. With it's loopy 5/4 time signatures, big drum fills, and grandiose synth melodies that seem to reach out of the speakers and travel towards the heavens, the resulting music is anything but pop. After the celestial synth tones die off, Bank's trademark electric piano, a CP-70, plays melancholy notes that start off the emotionally charged "Undertow", another in a long series of classic Banks' compositions that hit one on an emotional level, similar to "Afterglow" from Wind And Weathering, when one is not even sure of what Banks is laying his soul bare to.

Following "Undertow" is the low droning synth tones and trebly piano that signals the start of another bombastic song titled "The Ballad Of Big" that does all that's musically needed to place the listener in the middle of a Wild West ambush with Collins' accordion pleated vocal chorus sounding like the refrain of an attacked army. Big music indeed for "The Ballad of Big." "Snowbound" is a mellow atmospheric guitar strummer from Rutherford that showcases Collins' mellower side and more of Banks' excellent mellotron and synth work. The album's longest track (at 7:09) "Burning Rope" follows. This song, along with "The Lady Lies" is Banks' songwriting at its best, with everything thrown in except the kitchen sink along with some tricky time changes. Rutherford plays a lot of tasty lead and rhythm guitar on these tracks and does a good job of being both melodic and inventive without ever trying to mimic the recently departed Steve Hackett. In fact, it's difficult to listen to so much guitar without wondering how different these songs would have sounded had Hackett been included this time around, but this is ultimately reason for the album's four star rating. More on that in a minute.

"Deep in The Motherlode" is as close as Genesis ever got to mixing prog with psychedelia. Its slowed down vocals, slight varispeed treatment to the rhythm section and Rutherford's heavily phased, panned and echoed guitar leads put this song almost into a category of its own. "Many too Many" and "Say it's Alright Joe" are slow moving ballads by Banks and Rutherford respectively, while "Scenes From A night's Dream" is an up beat pop rocker by Collins that features wonderful fairytale lyrics. All three of these songs do little to move the album forward until we get the afore mentioned "The Lady Lies", and the afore mentioned album closer "Follow You, Follow Me."

With hindsight, it's easy to look at "Follow You, Follow Me" as pointing to the band's future album direction, but at the time, even with the short song durations, ...And Then There Three seemed like the next phase of Genesis' prog direction. As I stated above, it's nearly impossible to listen to the mini epics like "Burning Rope" and "The Lady Lies" without thinking that Steve Hackett could have raised these two songs, as good as they are, to an even higher level. And, as good as Banks, Rutherford and Collins are making these heavily layered songs work without sounding overly cluttered, a slimmed down sound mix that included Hackett could have worked just as well or possibly better. However, ATTWT is still deeply in the band's prog agenda, so let's just leave it at that and enjoy this album for what it is and not what people think it could have been. 3.8 stars rounded up to 4, which makes it a fine addition to any prog collection.