...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...

Good, but not essential. That's exactly what this album is. And to think it had the potential to be another classic! It really did! If you listen to most of the songs, they are still unmistakably Genesis. You can still hear some old Genesis flavor on most tracks, the overall production is very similar to two previous albums. The melodies and - in most cases - lyrics, are not that bad at all, some of them are even quite uplifting. But there is one problem - the instrumental passages are all gone. Most of the songs are condensed into a more accessible 3-4 minute format, which stripes them off all the possible 'epicness'. Obviously the main reason is that Steve Hackett is here no more. And that's a shame, because maybe with his input, we would have another classic Genesis album? Take the song "Undertow" for example. It's has a really nice, uplifting melody, but it is too SHORT! If extended, it could be another great epic like "Entangled". or "One for the Vine" Other songs that are ALMOST perfect are: "Burning Rope" "Snowbound", "Deep in the Motherlode" and "The Lady Lies". That last track even takes us back a bit to Peter Gabriel era... The rest is OK, but like i say - underdeveloped. And I disagree that this album started the 'pop' era of Genesis. The only OBVIOUS pop song in here is the single "Follow You, Follow Me" stylistically very different to anything Genesis has done up to that point and in fact very different to the rest of the album. But this is probably the only song on the entire album that was not 'prog' ON PURPOSE.

Generally, on this album Genesis showed that they could still be great prog band without Steve Hackett, if only they put a little more input in the instrumental aspect of the tracks, but the success of "Follow You, Follow Me" probably persuaded them to continue in a more radio-friendly direction...