THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY

This psychidelic journey across two discs of surreal narrative was to be the last album of Genesis' first era, and a fitting swan song it is. Great stuff mixed with some unbearable instrumental... mmm, no, not instrumental: ambient breaks. The end result is both fascinating and head-scratching... now let's get deeper into the story of Rael.

First disc opens with the title track anthem, great song, but which inside this conceptual monster works merely as an prologue. Things start getting real weird when a black wall shows up over Manhattan Island on "Fly on a Windshield", with necessary lyrics for the story but not very interesting melody. The song segues seamlessly into "Broadway Melody of 1974" which reverses things: this one does have a better melody, but the lyrics are just a collection of Broadway references that if taken out wouldn't hurt the story a single bit. We catch up with poor Rael, trapped inside a "Cuckoo Cocoon" to finally find himself caged in and escape after a painful experience in the second great song of the album, "In the Cage", which features a frenzy-ladden combination between keyboard and drums playing in different times signatures and a great -though short- solo by Banks. A very short ambient passage foreshadows latter wastes of time, before one of the weirdest songs here, marred by unnecesary voice FX by Brian Eno (listen to the FX-less live recording of this song instead: what a relief) "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging". After the linear continuity between the previous two songs, this one comes out of nowhere within the narrative. Never liked it. Things get back on track with this "trilogy" of linked songs: the agressive "Back in N.Y.C" (nice keyboard arpeggio but perhaps too long a song), the absolutely BEAUTIFUL instrumental "Hairless Heart" (one of Genesis' best melodies ever, wish it weren't that short!) and the great "Counting Out Time", happy ragtime song where Rael confesses his failed first attempt at sex. Great stuff. Anyway, narratively this section is filled with tales about Rael's past; it's not until "The Carpet Crawlers" that we find out where the hell in this bizarre subterranean world he is NOW. Gentle melody this one, has become kind of a classic: I think it's a good one, but not really special. Following these people crawling through a carpet, Rael arrives at "The Chamber of 32 Doors", one of the best combinations of music and storytelling lyrics in this album. We really feel Rael is in this strange place, has a conflict to resolve, and is genuinely desperate to know which of the 32 doors is the one to lead him outta there. Very good place to interrupt the narrative and leave us hanging... for the brief time it takes to change a cd/lp, at least.

So disc 2 comes in and filler material starts flooding sections to the point in which I wonder if this wouldn't have worked better as a single album. Don't know. "Lillywhite Lilith" picks up where the previous song left off, with the appearance of a blind lady who offers to help Rael out of the chamber, only to leave him trapped in a jade throne waiting for death herself to come for him. Story's getting better, huh? Too bad it all goes to hell with a five minute pointless jam baptized as "The Waiting Room". I believe it must be one of the most hated Genesis songs (from Peter's era, of course, poor Phil got almost all the hatred afterwards). I generally don't like jams, and this one doesn't even have music, it's a noise & sound festival -almost like a Genesis' version of P.Floyd's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals....". "Anyway"... that's the next one, and a good one it is. Cool piano work and very good lyrics about waiting for death... if only there hadn't been that jam between the first song and this one! So death arrives... and it turns out to be a complete disappointment: "The Supernatural Anaesthetist" is a totally boring affair which fails both musically and within the narrative... this guy is trapped waiting for death and... what? We never understand what the hell happens or how he escapes. Fortunately, his next adventure is a wonderful one: Rael finds "The Lamia" in a pool, three snake-like creatures with a female face, has sex with them and eats their remains as they die from the experience. Yuck. I mean, whoa! The melody is so beautiful (although with too many pauses to build a real momentum) that it helps get caught up with what's happening in the story. But then again, as we were getting involved, an instrumental comes up and we have to wait until "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats" is over to be greeted by "The Colony of Slippermen", a three-part song where Rael finds out he's bound to become a nasty lumpy creature as a consequence of having been with the Lamia, as all men in this colony have. That is, unless he is castrated. And in a Freudian image, a crow steals his... his. Great song, funny lyrics, cool rhythm changes. So, what do you think happens now, as it has been customary during this second disc? YUP! An ambient instrumental!! You got it right. Ideas were dangerously running short here, if you had any doubts about it. After "Ravine" we get a sort-of reprise from the first song in the album, "The Light Dies Down on Broadway", where unfortunately you CAN tell that the lyrics were not written by the same person (this is the only song Peter didn't write lyrics to). Not very interesting or crucial to the story, either. We get in the final section of this adventure with the "Riding the Scree"/"In the Rapids"/"It" trilogy. The first one is a real weird tune that works real good to illustrate the dangerous place Rael is cruising through in order to save his brother John, caught "In the Rapids". Yet when he finds it, he realises that was not John: it was himself.

Hmmm... I've heard that before. Or afterwards, maybe. What the hell it means beats me, but I think the weirdest thing is that after that "shocking revelation" in a very, very quiet song, an up-tempo closer number kicks in where Peter tried to put in as many words that contained "it" in them as he could. What is IT? One of the weirdest conceptual album closers, that's the only thing I can assure.

A guarded recommendation for this one. 3.5.