Peter Gabriel - Security (remastered)
(DGC)
I'm a big Peter Gabriel fan. Ever since I began listening to his music, I've been waiting for his albums to be remastered. His catalogue, along with Prince's, were the worst offenders of bad vinyl to CD transfers. His albums were mixed so low you could barely hear them. Small sonic details, something Gabriel is known for, were non-existent... the vinyl versions sounded better than the CDs. So you can imagine my joy when I heard Gabriel's catalogue (through Us) was being remastered. The day they were released, I bought them all (except for Shaking The Tree, which is just a compilation). And while I love all of them, I was more excited to hear Security than I was to hear any of the other albums.
Security is Peter Gabriel working without a net. He took the innovations of his last album, Peter Gabriel 3, and then used them to go into uncharted territory. This is evident right from the first track, "The Rhythm Of The Heat," with its pounding percussion and non-traditional song structure. "San Jacinto" feels like its polar opposite; it's a dark mood piece. "I Have The Touch" uses a bed of complicated percussion to propel forward a great melody. "The Family And The Fishing Net" is like an aural nightmare, even though it's actually about wedding practices. "Shock The Monkey" was the hit, a semi-soul treatise on animal testing that is as catchy as it is chilling. "Lay Your Hands On Me" is another mood piece—richly evocative. "Wallflower" is the most conventional-sounding song, its directness perfectly suited to Gabriel's humanitarian message. And "Kiss Of Life" finishes off the whole album on an up note, bringing the album satisfying closure, making it seem like a journey more than just a collection of songs.
The remastering finally does this landmark album justice. The powerful bass in "The Rhythm of the Heat," "I Have The Touch," and "Shock The Monkey" pulsate and rumble in a way that was sorely lacking in the previous CD release. The rich sonic beds of "San Jacinto," "The Family And The Fishing Net," and "Lay Your Hands On Me" shimmer with detail and life. Every instrument has new clarity and delineation. For the first time, Security speaks with the power that it always had but had previously been muted.
Listening to this new edition, the innovative nature of the songs really comes to the fore. In Gabriel's catalogue, Security is the furthest from rock and roll (and this includes his records with Genesis). Gabriel was the first rock artist to work heavily with world beat sounds, beating Paul Simon by two years, and David Byrne by five. And the song structures aren't typical. It's almost like Gabriel took the alternate structures of Dylan songs like "Tangled Up In Blue" and "Lily, Rosemary, and The Jack Of Hearts" and twisted them to his own ends, which were infinitely sonically darker. Even the more traditional songs, like "Shock The Monkey" and "Wallflower," both have a menace and sense of unpredictability about them that a more conventional rock song can't quite capture. While Gabriel would make more popular albums (So) and had made more acclaimed albums (Peter Gabriel 1, Peter Gabriel 3), Security is the best work he ever did.
|
