...And Then There Were Three... (1978)

Artist: Genesis
Release Year: 1978

Rating: 5/10

Track Listing: 1) Down and Out; 2) Undertow; 3) Ballad of Big; 4) Snowbound;  5) Burning Rope; 6) Deep in the Motherlode; 7) Many Too Many; 8) Deep in a Night's Dream; 9) Say It's Alright Joe; 10) The Lady Lies; 11) Follow You Follow Me.

Well, here we are: Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett are gone, leaving this very self-aware trio to break into pop stardom.  How they did it with an album like this, though, is beyond me.  Where Wuthering had me wondering what might come next, only to be disappointed by the same grayness again and again,  And Then There Were Three is the opposite: I often didn't care what was next, but occasionally got a pleasant surprise-- at least, when I was really working to pay attention.  There are great moments, but you still need a chisel to get this stuff out, and that's no good.

The first big hit was "Follow You Follow Me", a mushy love ballad with lyrics that would make me gag, if not for the nice winding vocal melody in the chorus that helps to sell everything.  Throw in that warm, "scraping" guitar effect and the bouncy "zoop zoop" sounds on the drums, and you're all set.  "Burning Rope" has a really warm and humanistic chorus that's very nice, but the most hopeful point for me was the guitar solo that almost sounds like it could be Steve Hackett returned-- but nope, it's Rutherford.  Too bad the song is several minutes longer than it needs to be.

"Down and Out" is a promising rocker, with an intense performance from Phil on both vocals and drums in all sorts of weird time signatures, but the guitars are mixed too low to give it all the energy it deserves.  Similar complaints apply to "Deep in a Night's Dream", even if the thing is more straightforward.  "Snowbound"  is pretty and evokes the image of shimmering snow at midnight very well, with a soaring chorus that somehow still makes everything sound lonely and sad.  A strange choice for a song about hiding a murder victim in a snowman, but they nail the frigid feeling well enough to get praise from me.

The rest of this album, though, is mostly a bore.  Don't get me wrong-- it's all played and sung very well, but there's just some missing piece that could have prevented the record from sounding as bleak as the drab album art.  "Undertow" has a really nice and heartfelt chorus, but do I want to try to follow the sleepy, wandering verses to get there?  Sorry, but occasional bursts of light can't break the inky monotony of this album.  Even the livelier moments, like in "Ballad of Big", sound like they're struggling to throw off a weighted blanket.  "Say It's Alright Joe" is probably the worst offender here.  At least there are fewer synthfests this time around.

A lot of these songs probably would have been better off on other albums, where some more dynamic production and melodic variety could have helped them pop out more.  As it is, though, they coalesce into a dark mass that I find hard to enjoy beginning to end.  I can at least see myself listening to some of these songs on their own, which is more than I can say about Wind & Wuthering, but I'll probably still have to chase it with something from Abacab.