PETER GABRIEL 2 [AKA: SCRATCH]

It´s a shame that Peter Gabriel hasn´t played for 2 decades any track of this album. Some say PG was still looking for his real direction (that is, world music influences, synths textures, etc.), but PG II is a superb album in his own right. Robert Fripp produced the tracks and, as it happened with his own excellent album "Exposure", the overall album has a definitive urban feeling with down to Earth lyrics. Prog fanatics accuse PG for not being so prog, but MUSIC in capital letters is an ocean, not just the shoreline, as Jean Michel Jarre once noted. PG II has more direct songs, some rocker ("On the Air", about a homeless; "Animal Magic" or "Perspective"), and some ballads ("Mother of Violence", with a subject later explored in "Digging in the Dirt"; "Indigo", and the emotional "Home Sweet Home", with some lyrics that remind to some Raymond Carver short stories). Excellent musicians contribute to this album: R. Fripp, Tony Levin (bass and the new instrument stick), Timmy Capello (incredible sax) or Roy Bittan (from the E Street Band, playing some fantastic piano parts). PG II is not a progressive masterpiece, but it´s clearly an excellent rock album, full of passion and naked feelings.