PETER GABRIEL 3 [AKA: MELT]

This is my favorite solo effort from Peter Gabriel. It's a dark album filled with sparse minimalist compositions; the imagery this music conjures is like a bleak monochromatic painting of an industrial wasteland. Depressive but ultimately fascinating and strangely beautiful.

'Intruder' is my favorite song Gabriel has recorded post-Genesis. Creepy metallic scratching noises adorn an alienated bare-framed drum beat. The creepy vocal deliver paints a very surreal and nightmarish picture... it creates a feeling of paranoia and isolation in the listener. Very powerful... this is Peter Gabriel's dark masterpiece.

'I Don't Remember' is another favorite of mine. Like 'Intruder' this has an almost Industrial feel to it. The beat is robotic and disaffected. The relentless bass line seems to be the only organic element in the entire soundscape... which again paints desolate pictures of urban sprawl in ruins.

'Games Without Frontiers' is an absolute classic. It's a more lively composition than most on this album, but it still has an intangible feeling of distance and coldness. It features an excellent use of early drum machines and icy synthetic sounds.

Overall this is a very good and unclassifiable album that is very far removed from Symphonic Prog, but it is very progressive and challenging in it's own idiosyncratic way. 3.5 stars.