Search - Genesis :: Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

Genesis' masterpiece with Gabriel gets a sonic makeover!

Terrence J. Reardon | Lake Worth (a west Palm Beach suburb), FL | 04/29/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"English art rockers Genesis released their seventh (and lone double studio) album entitled The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in November of 1974.

The album was created at a time where tensions in the band were astronomically high. Lead singer Peter Gabriel was going through some personal and professional problems while this album was being created (his daughter was born prematurely and uncertainty if his daughter would live (luckily she survived), his failed attempt at a filmscript and his bandmates were angered that Peter was more concerned about his family than the band (in later years, all the members would become parents)).

Despite the on-going tensions in the group, Gabriel created one final masterpiece with Genesis before he left the band in May of 1975 after the tour in support of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway where the band did the WHOLE DOUBLE ALBUM live start to finish (only The Who and Pink Floyd were other bands of the era that played whole albums start to finish in their set, let's see Britney Spears or any pop fool try it).

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was a concept album about a Puerto Rican kid named Rael whom falls into a netherworld known as New York and struggles to find himself throughout the course of the album. Some of the many standouts on this album are the title cut, "In the Cage" (arguably the best song on the album and was resurrected for the 2007 tour), "Back in NYC", "Counting Out Time" (released as a single but flopped), "The Carpet Crawlers" (a concert staple for many years and resurrected for the 2007 reunion tour), "The Chamber of 32 Doors", "The Lamia", "The Colony of Slippermen" and the closing track "It".

The album's other tracks "Fly On a Windshield", "Broadway Melody of 1974", "Cuckoo Cocoon", "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging", "Hairless Heart", "Lilywhite Lilith", "The Waiting Room" (a great instrumental from the same band who would later write "I Can't Dance" and "Hold On My Heart"), "Anyway" (whose roots go back to pre-Hackett and Collins era Genesis musically), "Here Come the Supernatural Anaesthetist", "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats", "Ravine", "The Light Dies Down On Broadway", "Riding The Scree" and "In The Rapids" are no filler as well and are great songs though some fairweather Genesis fans may think these tracks stink.

I first discovered this album in early September of 1997, when I picked up a used cassette copy (would buy the remastered CD two months later), and I was shocked on how excellent it really is and is today one of my Top 20 favorite rock albums of all time.

Unfortunately Peter Gabriel left after the tour in support of this album and eventually guitarist Steve Hackett would quit as well in late 1977.

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway peaked at #41 in early 1975 and would eventually go Gold in the US over time proving that people were willing to give pre-1980s Genesis a chance after discovering the band in the 1980s.

In November of 2008, Rhino/Atlantic re-released the album as a 2-CD/1-DVD set. The album was painstakingly remixed by engineer Nick Davis in stereo for excellent sound (kind of like what was done to The Who catalog in the 1990s). The new mixes are AMAZING and I hear things in the new mixes that I have not ever heard before. The DVD was in 5.1 and had an excellent slide show with the album and interviews with band members and an appearance on French television in 1974. In March, 2009, Virgin/EMI re-released the 2008 mix of the album as a 2-CD set. Those who have the box and get annoyed with sliding the CDs in and out of sleeves should get a backup copy in case the discs were badly destroyed from sliding in and out of sleeves.

This new mix of Lamb is recommended!"