(Real World/Virgin)
Herald rating: * * * *
Review: Graham Reid
Gabriel sometimes seems less a working musician than a facilitator these days, having not released an album since 1992's Us, although his Real World label brings together musicians from all points of the globe.
Ovo is the soundtrack to a multi-media show which played the Millennium Dome in London, and shifts ground effortlessly from Eno-esque ambience to distortion-pedal Bowiesque rock with a few world music digressions along the way. Gabriel again goes for the Big Picture, musically and in its theme.
The preview copy I have comes without the 48-page booklet which, apparently, explains that this conceptual piece tells the story of a family and what Gabriel sees as two phases of human history: the agricultural in earlier times (the didgeridoo-driven Man Who Loved the Earth), and the present industrial/technological one (the bruising Tower That Ate People). Sounds typically heavy, heady Gabriel, but this is the man whose The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was one of the few successful narrative-concept albums.
It's a compliment that Ovo doesn't sound like a concept album. Musically it's richly textured (some jiggery-folkery, Gabriel stepping forward for a lovely weary ballad) and with the likes of Neneh Cherry, Richie Havens, Liz Fraser from the Cocteau Twins, Paul Buchanan of Blue Nile and the Black Dyke Band (who let them in here?) all carrying vocal duties, it also feels less like that long-overdue Gabriel album than a marriage of minds.
Hey, nice facilitation, Peter.
<i>Peter Gabriel:</i> Ovo
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