...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...

The suitably titled "And Then There Were Three..." showed a significant departure for Genesis, both in personnel and the form their music would take. This wasn't just a one-off experiment or a lackadaisical attitude to this album, but really a foundation for the future musical direction of the band. The longest song on this album timed in at 7:09 with most of the songs around 5 minutes long or less. Many of the songs exhibited a commonplace radio-friendly structure, although they were all filled with flourishes of the group's prior symphonic progressive glory. However, for the most part, Genesis maintained interesting subjects for the lyrics of their songs like in the past, just shorter and to the point. The two most notable exceptions being Many Too Many and Follow You, Follow Me, which of course were released as singles and got a lot of radio play.

Steve Hackett of course was gone, leaving for a semi-successful solo career mostly because he felt the band was not agreeable to many of the songs he wrote for the band. Tony Banks and Phil Collins tended to get most of the songwriting credits since Gabriel left. Instead of looking for another guitarist, Mike Rutherford took over playing the dual role of bassist and lead guitarist. Rutherford was adequate, even fairly good at the guitar, but was a far cry from Hackett's talent.

So, is this worth your time? Yes, I'd say so, unless you have something against shorter format songs. Think of And Then There Were Three as a radio-friendly version of Wind and Wuthering. The keys are still dominating, maybe even more lush in places than on Wind and Wuthering and Phil Collins shows some improvement in his singing capabilities. What's missing are the extended instrumental sections filled with keyboard and guitar solos, and of course, Steve Hackett. Still, this is an exceptional release for 1978 considering the state of the times for prog rock.

Not a chance at being a masterpiece, but still a worthwhile and excellent album. I'd say maybe 3.8 rounded up to four stars seems deserving.