Peter Gabriel

Security

Brilliant -- Every Home MUST Have One!

Review Score:

(10/10)
You don't have a well-rounded CD collection if you haven't got 'Passion' and 'Security', both by Peter Gabriel. Why is 'Security' -- known as 'Peter Gabriel 4' in Europe -- so important?

1. It is a definitive hi-fi test album. If ever you buy a new component for your hi-fi, take this CD along to the shop, and test the opening track, 'Rhythm of the Heat'. Many low-quality components cannot cope with the bass boom that invades after the first Gabriel wail. This music, which first appeared on LP, had been waiting for the added clarity and impact of CD.

2. Gabriel was one of the first artists to master the complex Fairlight synthesizer. Here he creates a whirlpool of musical disorientation -- for example, the overwhelming swirling drums and percussion of the opening track, the modified marimba and eerie woodwind sounds in 'San Jacinto'.

3. This album is the fulfilment of Gabriel's departure from Genesis, some eight years earlier. Gabriel could never have stayed within the band and trodden the psychological path that took him to this masterpiece.

If you've seen the film 'Birdy', some of this album will seem strangely familiar. Gabriel took the best tunes from this and the third album, re-worked them into instrumental versions, and created, in at least one reviewer's view, an even better album.

At the time of writing this review, only 14 other reviews of the album are filed here on amazon. I don't understand why it gets so little attention when Passion, his other masterpiece, has 103 reviews. Both are equally magnificent.

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