| Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway | Label: Atlantic Records Release: 1974 Tracklisting: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway Fly on A Windshield Broadway Melody of 1974 Cuckoo Cocoon In the Cage The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging Back In N.Y.C Hairless Heart Counting Out Time The Carpet Crawlers The Chamber of 32 Doors Lilywhite Lilith The Waiting Room Anyway Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist The Lamia Silent Sorrow In Empty Boats The Colony Of Slippermen Ravine The Light Dies Down on Broadway Riding The Scree In the Rapids It. |  (View Larger Image) 
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| CD Review by Reginald I. Perrin (View Other Reviews by This Person) | |
| Where on earth do you start with this album, perhaps one of the most overblown in the entire history of music? Just where?The year was 1974, and Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel was in the mood. That mood. Yep, after wowing crowds with his flower costumes and his lawnmower impressions, he was in the mood for a double-album rock opera about Rael, the street punk.I refuse to go into the story any further, because it's incredibly complicated and there's already a huge load of resourceson the Internet regarding it, but it's a decent concept anyhow - if a bit hard to follow. At the time, it was Gabriel'sgrandest artistic achievement - and the one that eventually resulted in him leaving Genesis after Banks and co. got sick of having to play behind a gigantic genital wart.
Well...anyway, what about the music. Yep, it's great. It's excellent, in fact - there's tons of it, and even the incidentalfiller tracks are good (well, with the exception of Waiting Room) and they set a mood. As for the actual songs, the band record some of their best here - The title track, Carpet Crawlers, In the Cage (complete with a godlike Banks solo), The Colony of Slippermen, the ethereal Lamia, and the closing It. Pure brilliance. One other important note about this album is that, even if Gabriel hadn't left yet, this was the album where Banks began todominate. He's all over the place - pianos, keyboards, and of course...the banksynth. Although the classic banksdrench wasn't totally in place yet, he's still all over this one, with pretty much every main solo bar "Lamia" and "Here Comes theSupernatural Anaesthetist"...speaking of Hackett, he suffers massively - on many tracks, he's practically nonexistent. When given the chance, he shines (His closing solo on Lamia is one of his best), but most of the time, he's beneath the wave ofsynth. Not to the same extent as he was on Wind And Wuthering, but still barely on the record. The album itself flows well - all the songs seem to connect with one another, even if the story can be a little confusing at times. And the songs are pretty much all outstanding - the only slight misfire is "Waiting Room", which is basically a couple of minutes of noise. But that's basically it - everything else here is good, and some of the songs are classic top-drawer Genesis. Worthy of the 10, for me. Reviewer Rating of CD :  | |
