"Another view of US" - Peter Morton reviews Peter Gabriel’s new album.

As we are now well aware, new released from Peter Gabriel are fairly rare commodities, and for this latest album we have certainly had a long wait. Was the wait worth it? Most definitely,although I would say that this album took several listening before I could give a full appraisal of it.

We had already been given a sampler of the album with the first single release: Digging In The Dirt and its B side on 7th September. The video to accompany the single was banned for some strange reason by the BBC although MTV did give it a good promotion. The single managed to reach the top thirty but shortly afterwards slipped back out of the charts.

I digress… back to the album… at over 57 minutes in length, this is one of Peter’s longest album releases. As he states in the sleeve notes, this record is about relationships, a subject most prevalent on a number of tunes although not all. Up tempo songs such as Steam (could this be the next single?) and Kiss That Frog finds Peter in almost funky form. Dare I say it? Both songs written in complete contrast to say, Washing Of The Water and Fourteen Black Paintings, which in places could quite easily fit on an album release such as his previous work: Passion.

Some great musicians appear on the record - Brian Eno, Peter Hammill, Daniel Lanois, Sinead O’Connor and Shankar to name but a few. Even Genesis’ old friend Richard MacPhail is there on backing vocals on Digging In The Dirt. Secret World with an instrumental finale which I would love to go on forever finished what is yet another superb release from Mr Gabriel. Finally it must be said that a new release from Peter Gabriel is like a new release from Kate Bush - a guaranteed masterpiece.