A great band with great musicians and of course Peter Gabriel & Phil Collins

Hard ambitious and perhaps not perfect, if Genesis (Peter) we had managed to be number one!

The only good rock opera ever made. The two previous Genesis studio albums are better though.

This album took a long time to sink in for me. Always used to prefer "Trespass" Nurcery Cryme" and "Foxtrot". One day it just clicked though. What was I thinking!! This is a fantastic sprawling wonderful epic achievement. Genesis at their very best.

Without doubt, the band's finest hour. Epic, sprawling, deeply complex and at times, utterly bizarre. When I first got this album, i remember spending hours reading through the sleeve notes of the gatefold album. I am not sure where Gabriel got this from. Side 4 tails off a bit, but the first 3 sides are epic. Fly on a windshield, in the cage, grand parade, lamia, lilywhite lilith and the epic the waiting room. I can't think of an album quite like it. Different from the rest of their output and no-one else has ever attempted anything quite like this

Genesis' path up to this point was truly "progressive". Tresspass had some folk leanings, Nursery Cryme forged the band's identity as an eccentric, melodic, and intricate prog band, Foxtrot added a bit of heaviness and epicness to the sound, and Selling England by the Pound balanced it all out into a capsule of the band's sound up to that point. The Lamb is a logical extension of Pound, except it's even more cinematic and edgy than Foxtrot. It's hard to describe, really.

This album starts off with a set of exceptional, tightly constructed and well played songs, but then it dives into areas that are experimental, atmospheric, and just plain bizarre. Kudos to the band for really going all out here. The sound effects and distortions are great, especially on songs like Slipperman, Lifeless Packaging, and Counting Out Time. Tony Banks steals the show on this album, delivering beautiful and chilling piano pieces in songs like The Carpet Crawlers and Anyway. Hairless Heart might be the highlight of the entire album; it's brief, but very cinematic and emotional. Counting Out Time is classic Genesis nonsense...probably the best song about sex that's not "Baby Got Back". In the Cage is so damn edgy - it's a darker Watcher of the Skies.

The closing track is bombastic and conclusive. Queen must've loved this album.

Under Peter Gabriel's vision, genesis put out a completely conceptual album only hinted to by "supper's ready" and other previous album long-players. This album would represent the group's pinnacle of artistic achievement, built upon many albums filling out their "prog rock" sound, and gabriel's farewell album.

DISC 1:

the lamb lies down on broadway: This song, from opening, building piano and crashing drums through the initial chorus, establishes the sound, mood and storyline gabriel intends to tell. It's an everyman tale in a magical world, as our hero "out on the subway, rael imperial aerosol kid, exits into daylight, spraygun hid". i love gabriel's howl of identity "i am RAEL". He loses his brother in this song.

fly on the windshield: the mood quickly goes dim as "there's something solid formin in the air, / and the wall of death is lowered in times square." i love the slam of moog after the line "i'm hovering like a fly waiting for the windshield on the freeway" -- it's very eerie yet comforting. Phil begins to show off why he was the best drummer of all-time. (i've always equated rush's drummer as the best technical drummer and phil the best "poetic" or "interpretive" drummer, but he's a fair technician as well.)

broadway melody of 1974: "fly" segues smoothly into the "broadway melody". There's some fun rhyme schemes and cool imagery in this song like "the cheerleader waves her cyanide wand, there's a smell of peach blossom and bitter almonds" and "there's howard hughes in blue suede shoes, smiling at the majorettes smoking winston cigarettes".

cuckoo cocoon: This is where the album begins to increase from "very good" to "great". Beautiful imagery. Haunting guitar. Nice vocal effects. Very subtle musically. Even gabriel's flute doesn't carry as much weight as it has in the past. i love the rolling piano at the end -- it's too brief d@mnit!

in the cage: "i've got sunshine in my stomach like i just rocked my baby to sleep". Beautiful introduction to horrific tale of chaos & claustrophobia. Great song for quoting lyrics, as is half the album. The opening verse builds musically as it builds lyrically this way: "rockface moves to press my skin / white liquid turns sour within / turn fast - turn sour / turn sweat - turn sour / must tell myself that i'm not here, / i'm drowning in a liquid fear. / bottled in a strong compression, / my distortion shows obsession / in the cave". i love tony banks's synth playing at the bridge, possibly his fastest, most intricate passage at first, yielding to a more pastoral calm before high-pitching to the song's climax. "helpless in my violet rage", rael's friend (mirror image perhaps) leaves him in his man-made urban cage: "pressures building / can't take more / headaches charge / earaches roar". i love the spiraling out-of-control ending pre-denouement. One of my fav 3 songs on the 2-vinyl set.

the grand parade of lifeless packaging: Of all the songs on the album, this one has grown the most in my esteem over the years. It's a comical farce built upon precise lyrics and imagery, always building upward and onward as an oncoming parade would. A bunch of fun lyrics in this. "got people stocked in every shade / must be doing well with trade. / stamped, addressed, in odd fatality. / that evens out their personality." I love phil's drum/cymbal work -- he's the master again. Probably the most uplifting song on the album, ironic due to its content, like when gabriel proclaims "i see no signs of free will so i guess i'll have to pay, pay my way!"

back in nyc: This song's a musical roller-coaster as "dance with the moonlit knight" was before it with a lot of inner turmoil, as shown in lyric "no time for romantic escape / when your fluffy heart is ready for rape". There's a lot of venom in gabriel's voice.

hairless heart: Pretty instrumental piece that turns ominous quickly.

counting out time: Tongue-in-cheek-in-heart love song with the funny line "erogenous zones i love you. / without you, what would a poor boy do." Rael buys a book which tells him how to score with women eventually receiving "unexpected distress from my mistress / i'll get my money back from the bookstore right away".

the carpet crawlers: Another of my fav 3, this song contains an introductory verse that sounds out-of-place with the rest of the song, but it carries the narrative through well. When Tony's synth-piano arrives, the song begins to take off. This is our hero sinking into the abyss. "a salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. / imaginary creatures are trapped at birth on celluloid" as "the crawlers cover the floor in a red, ochre corridor. / for my second sight of people, they've more lifeblood than before" "like the forest fight for sunlight, that takes root in every tree, they are pulled up by the magnet, believing they're free". i love the rolling synth-piano. Awesome song. More: "the porcelain mannequin with shattered skin fears attack / the eager pack lift up their pitchers -- they carry all they lack. / the liquid has congealed, which has seeped out through the crack, / and the tickler takes his stickleback." Love this one.

After i bought my first 100 disc player back around 1995 and moved in with a roommate (to save $), i play it on random a lot. i've always liked the idea of having my own commercial-free radio station. On random, sting's "fields of gold" seemed to play a lot when my roommate was gone (to the point where he expressed his disdain when the song started).

the chamber of 32 doors: This is a good song to help close out disc 1. It's really a sad tale of losing hope but done beautifully, closing "i'd give you all of my dreams if you'd help me find a door that doesn't lead me back again -- take me away". There's a sentiment in this song and other songs i've aped over the years, a song of being out of control in a tough spot trying hard to gain control...and hope.

DISC 2:

lillywhite lillith: "the chamber was in confusion -- all the voices shouting loud. / i could only hear a voice quite near say, 'please help me through the crowd'." That's how the second disc starts. Sounds like Phil singing lead in parts.

the waiting room: Pretty cool Enosified instrumental spazz out. I don't think lillith treated our hero right... I remember playing this song in a tangentially-techno-related segment on my college techno show. Banks & Hackett do well in here.

anyway: Cool song. i have a chunk of this song memorized as i find it full of interesting analogies for life, peter singing "anyway, they say she comes on a pale horse, but i'm sure i hear a train" and "does earth plug a hole a heaven or heaven plug a hole in earth? / how wonderful to be so profound when everything you are is dying underground". Love the piano -- fits the song beautifully.

the supernatural anaesthetist: Phil joins on vocals for this good transitional piece with some decent guitar to close the song out just before the third of my favorite 3 songs on the album.

the lamia: This is probably my favorite song on the album. It's dark, lyrically-imaginative and dense, musically full and varying and a cool story as well. This is a tale of love and desperation and losing one's way. (Oh, and it features vampires!) Our hero lamia is seduced by the lamia, first noticing them with the verse "thinking he is quite alone, he enters the room as if it were his own / but ripples on the sweet pink water reveal some company unthought of". A lot of great lyrics in this one too, very descriptive, as if you were reading a lamia short story. "Rael stands astonished doubting his sight, struck by beauty, gripped in fright" Gabriel varies his delivery well from third-person narrative to the cooing lamia exalting in the warmth they have to offer. The piano tickles lightly as Gabriel voices the trembling protagonist, singing "with their tongues, they test, taste and judge all that is mine. They move in a series of caresses that glide up and down my spine." But Rael's (pure) blood kills the lamia leaving this picture -- possibly my favorite lyric of the song: "each empty snakelike body floats, silent sorrow in empty boats". For Rael, "it is the scent of garlic that lingers on my chocolate fingers". Hackett and Phil lead the way dimming the lights on the song with Gabriel's flute to close.

silent sorrow in empty boats: Instrumental passage following the lamias' bodies downstream. There wouldn't be vampires this pretty again until the Twilight movie series.

the colony of slippermen (Arrival – A Visit to the Doktor – Raven): After eating the lamia, Rael turns into a slipperman. Confronted by the raven, he's presented with the album's climax. Fun 3-part song with Phil even singing lead for a bit. Gabriel takes on the voice of other slippermen, ugly and deviant. Rael rediscovers his brother in this song. They go to the doktor to help them revert to normal, internally shouting on the operating table "don't delay, dock the dick. i watch his countdown timer tick." Tony Banks rocks it. Like A.I., this is one of three songs that sounds to me like an album ender.

ravine: Eerie instrumental pulling away the magical haze returning Rael to reality. If i have any beefs with the album, it's with "ravine" and "in the rapids" sounding a little too much like incidental passages not fully-flushed out. This song quietly trails off to...

the light dies down on broadway: This is the more dramatic, slow, complimentary buildup bookend to the opening title track. It's a last gasp of tragedy for brother John crying for help. (aka, end #2.)

riding the scree: There's some rapid-fire synth playing by mr. banks symbolizing the chaotic tumble of the rapids to open "riding the scree".

in the rapids: This is the album's denouement. Slow and loping.

it.: This is the celebratory finale. Great, fun song to close this thing out. It, whatever it is (life?), is all around. Tony & Phil play off of each other with Hackett flying above the fray as Peter fills us in (sort of) on what "it" is. My favorite line: "it is chicken. it is eggs. / it is in between your legs." It closes "it's only knock and knowall, but i like it..."

The most ambitious Genesis album. Mid-way, Peter Gabriel hit a creative wall and the guys finished the album as they could. An unpredictable album of raw creativity, even its creators dd not expect it to end up like that.

I listen to Foxtrot more often but on a general albums list, the Lamb has more to offer. While the "inspiration" crisis that plagued Peter Gabriel mid-way through the writing of this album is clearly heard, one must admit that the virtuosity and creativity of that group of five musicians saved the day. This is one album which is NOT a cookie-cutter recipe type of album - even its creators expected it to be something else.