THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY

This has been probably one the records most difficult to rate for me in some time. While its two predeccesors were two albums whose direction, spirit and structure were armonic and well established and clear, it is not the case with this effort. The last album from the Gabriel's era was a myriad of abruptly direction changing songs. When you have gone to some extent into the album, you know that after having listened to one song you don't know what to expect from the next. That is, the sense of balance present in the two previous albums is completely lost here, although this is precisely what gives this record an aggresive and solid perspective. This album is wild, dangerous and independent, all of this as mellow, melodic, friendly and cheerful was "Selling England by the pound". Probably Peter Gabriel wanted it that way and, as the very Phil Collins once mentioned, "The Lamb Lies down on Broadway" must have been an interesting and challenging musical creation.

Then, this album is quite diverse. This is more obvious in the first disc, which starts with a melodic and high intro song, the one which gives title to the record, and it is followed with darker counterparts sometimes, like in the case of "Fly on a Windshield", mellow and subtle nocturnes like "Cucko Cocoon", a very sweet song, probably one of my favourites. We can also find some psychedelic elements, something not very usual in Genesis. An example of this can be found in "Back in N.Y.C". "In The Cage" is a very well done mini-epic, with an excellent mix of organ, mellotron and guitar, recalling passages from "Supper's ready", for instance. Another excellent song. "Counting out time" plays with distortion and gives a somewhat comic and cheerful touch to this part of the album, although it is also true this is not the first time Peter Gabriel had done that. Then we find another exotic change in "Carpet Crawlers", which is actually a ballad, something also not very usual. This disc ends with "The Chamber of 32 Doors", the most guitar based song of this disc, with the company of very subtle notes of organ again.

Then, in the second disc we start in a similar way that we ended the previous one, with Steve Hackett in action in "LilyWhite Lillith". "The Waiting Room" is an strange mix of sounds coming from glasses and other mundane objects, lots of distortion and short guitar and synth touches at the end of the song, one of the weirdest we can find. Then the album changes into a more melodic mood with "Anyway" 's piano loops, and "Here comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist" magnificent guitar riffs. Then two slow and very mellow songs "The Lamia" and "Sillent Sorrow in Empty Boats" (probably the weakest songs from the album). After that, the time for farewell begins to set in motion with "The Light Dies Down in Broadway", a quite similar song to the opening piece, "Riding the Scree", with its synth solo and drums energetic beat, an interlude in "In The Rapids" and the final piece of the cake, "It", in which Steve Hackett and Tony Banks prove how a good team they used to be in the early days.

So, probably this is one of the most complex and less straightforward works from the Gabriel era, although it served as an excellent farewell from an excellent leader and composer. Probably an icon of conceptual albums of the last forty years. This is certainly what the most demanding Genesis' fans could always desire.