...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...

This is their first album as a trio, hence the title. Their guitarist, Steve Hackett, had left because he felt not enough of his music was getting on the albums. He had already had some success with his first album, 'The Voyage of the Acolyte', and left Genesis to continue his solo career.

Unfortunately, with his departure a lot of the magic sound that had made Genesis a great band had also departed. Many point to the departure of Gabriel as being the major turning point. And it is true to an extent, because with the departure of Gabriel, the lyrics were never quite as good, and the emotional power of Gabriel's voice was also lost forever. But Steve Hackett's epic mysticism was still with Genesis, and I believe he comes from the same place musically as Peter Gabriel does. Lose one, and the magic is still there in some form, but lose two, and you wind up with trio Genesis.

So what is trio Genesis? Keyboardist Tony Banks, who had been the principle composer, was always the brains of the group. Guitarist Mike Rutherford's strength lied more in the melodic aspect. And drummer/singer Phil Collins brought a technical proficiency to the band that was unmatched by most other drummers out there, and he also had a very good singing voice. But without Steve Hackett and Peter Gabriel, the band lost a lot of its heart and mystical sound. As a result, this album has a very stripped down sound.

There is very little acoustic playing on this album. No more classical guitar pieces, and very little piano. Tony also stopped using the mellotron, which had a very medieval and eary sound that really made the previous music sound truly epic. The band were obviously moving away from the long epics in favor of shorter, more to the point songs. As a result the stuff that made the music interesting is gone, and replaced by just the bare bones.

Songs like Down and Out, The Ballad of Big, and The Lady Lies are great examples of this stripped down sound done very well. The playing and technical ability of these three is, as always, top notch, and it shows on this album, in particular on Down and Out and The Lady Lies. Snowbound is also a nice soft song, reminiscent Ripples..., but without the beautiful piano interlude. And Follow You Follow Me is also nice song that proved to be their first #1 hit.

The problem with the album is that it is too much of the same. By stripping down the songs, they stripped away a lot of what made the old stuff so interesting to listen to. By the time you get to side two of the album, the album's synth dominated sound is already starting to get wearisome. Without a break from the electronics into more traditional sounds, it simply becomes too synthetic sounding, and not as organic and emotional as their older stuff.

Nevertheless, it's hard to say this is a bad album. In fact, it works very well in small doses. Some tracks, namely Many to Many, Undertow and even the minor hit, Say it's Alright Joe, are somewhat weak and although not bad, feel more like filler. The rest, while ranging from fair to really good, suffer by being on the same album. It's too much of the same synth textures, and it grows tiring.