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Peter Gabriel has been in hiding for some time. His few releases of the past decade have been collaborative efforts in world music or live albums. It's worth the wait. An aging prog-rocker could end up looking incredibly silly updating their sound to be "current". Gabriel was always an experimenter and much of his work anticipated electronica and even the aggressive dissonance of the Korn/Linkin Park genre, so he absorbs these back into his music effortlessly.

You can look at Gabriel era Genesis and see where a lot of this album stems from, but adapted to subject matter, and a greater sense of song-cohesiveness, of today. Less fantasy and mythology and more mundanity and reality, from one of the most talented songwriters of the last 50 years. Darkness starts off almost inaudible, then jarringly attacks, announcing the return of Gabriel. The aesthetic that informed classics like "Shock The Monkey" and "Big Time" are ever present and form the solid basis for melding in techno, world, hard rock, and classical tones. There is a slight tonal change in his voice, which gives it just enough edge to really make the more aggressive themes work wonderfully. Whether droning dirge or pure pop, it is unmistakably Gabriel and unmistakably from the heart.

Hot spots: Darkness, My Head Sounds Like That, Growing Up, No Way Out