...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...

OK, OK, so Genesis moved over to shorter, snappier songs on this one, and yes, it includes Follow You Follow Me. But let's not go overboard here - aside from that one song, the album is miles away from the slick and shamelessly commercial pop Genesis offered up in the 1980s and 1990s. With Steve Hackett gone, Mike and Tony Banks pick up the slack and take a sidestep away from the pastoral prog of their earlier years, presenting a synthesiser-heavy variation on the Genesis sound which still finds plenty of room for all the whimsy, drama, theatricality and weirdness the band had been known for.

And whilst the sound might be different from what came before, I'd hardly call it simpler or more accessible - this is a dense, occasionally impenetrable album with a surprising amount going on if you look beyond the simpler tracks like Follow You Follow Me.

Unfortunately, the band don't seem to have given themselves enough time after Hackett's departure to really iron out their new sound, with the result that the denser tracks feel awkward and half-formed, rather than the simultaneously accessible and lavish numbers the band used to turn out so effortlessly under Hackett's tenure. That said, part of the issue here may be the rather murky mix; the remixed and remastered CD reissue of 2007 greatly alleviates this and allows previously obscured qualities of the material room to breathe, resulting in a much better listening experience.

I wouldn't go so far as to call this essential Genesis, but it doesn't quite deserve the bum rap it usually gets. It's not a bad album - just the first , release to break the streak of great albums they'd put out from Trespass to Wind and Wuthering. I'd pick any of those albums - or Duke - over this one any day, but on the other hand if you're after prog-oriented material then you'd probably prefer to this to any of their post-Duke material.