...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...

While Genesis' music suffered an obvious drop in quality when Steve Hackett left, this album is still quite good and undeservedly gets a bad rap. There are many high quality songs on this transitional album... unfortunately, there are a few thin and meandering tracks as well, and the band sound a bit lost at times; not knowing which direction they wanted to take their music.

For this review, I will focus on the good:

'Down and Out' is an excellent opener which I feel is on-par with anything from their two previous sans-Gabriel albums... it has a similar feel to 'Dance on a Volcano' and would have been a great second track on the Trick of the Tail album. Collins' drumming is particularly impressive and energetic here as he repeatedly unleashes a barrage of lightning fast triplets and manic fills in 5/4 timing. Tony Banks takes a furious Moog solo two-thirds of the way through which harkens back to the Lamb era... and, all-in-all, this is an amazing song that really stands out on this album.

'Undertow', 'Many Too Many', and 'Snowbound' are three beautiful ballads akin to 'Afterglow' and 'Ripples'. Many people dislike the Collins-era Pop-influenced approach, but a lot of their slower sentimental songs from this time are excellently crafted and very emotional; far removed from mere mindless Pop music.

'Deep in the Motherlode' starts with a brilliant and catchy synth hook that can become lodged in your head for hours after hearing it only once. This song seems trapped in a parallel universe: lost somewhere in the limbo between 'Lamb' and 'Duke'. It seems to represent both eras simultaneously... this is one of the songs where it is apparent that Genesis were having an identity crisis; they knew they couldn't continue in the same style as before but were tentative to make the full leap into the mainstream.

'Follow you, Follow Me' is actually really good... it's always felt like an answer to Peter Gabriel's 'Solsbury Hill' to me. I've always loved the synth solo in the middle... this song has a strong nostalgic quality for me: it's was released the same year i was born and is certainly one of the first Genesis songs I ever heard.

The ballads outshine the Proggy compositions on this album, and in my opinion it was the right move for them to adopt a more overall Poppy approach on Duke. Duke is more overtly mainstream, but a much better album than this one because they finally accepted their lot and understood where their strength, in three-piece form, stood.

'...And Then There Were Three' has it's moments and isn't the disaster many like to make it out to be. This might even be the first true 'Neo Progressive' album.