New Blood [CD]

I've been a fan of Gabriel for years ever since I saw him in Genesis in support of Johnny Winter at Hull City Hall!!
I've seen most of the tours including a trek to Bochum in Germany to watch him mainly because my recently separated wife had grown a pointy nose, started cackling and riding a broomstick and would be taking her cuckolding partner with her to the UK shows.

I've lived 'So' first hand through a traumatic time.... but

Of late the man has seemed to have lost his muse..

So I waited and waited and finally got the CD in the sales for 4.99 Great British Pounds that I knew it would soon sink to after a couple of months only to see it fall to 2.99 a week later.
I bought the CD after seeing the man on Jools Holland's show where he was brilliant.

I did not want to enjoy this music simple because I loved the original so much.
BUT I have to say this is an enjoyable collection.

I am enjoying it much much better than I ever thought.

I came to conclusion that I loved the originals BUT in the past have paid to see and hear them be sung live in Peter's concerts in variety of styles with a variety of different guest backing or joint vocalist.
(I'm thinking of Youssou N'Dour's soaring vocals on In your Eyes to name just one here.)
So this is just another extension of that.

But this has a slightly bitter twist.
Peter has aged.. So have we all and at the same rate.
I believe he has reached a point in his life and career where he can look back.
Relive his triumphs and failures and how each has tempered and forged his music and songs over these decades. He is coasting but he has every right to. He has been a pioneer an innovative genius who has brought great joy to me and millions of people.
This is too small a place to list his achievements here of course.

I believe this is a collection of songs that have grown up with the man just like children. Gabriel songs are like his daughters now full grown and starting families of their own.
This is a look back by a great man.
The album is a treasury of wonderful lovingly treated songs. Imagine an old suitcase full of photographs. The box opened and each gem is taken out one by one to be examined, the memories fllod back, loved and relived.

A niggle but to me the one track I simply cannot stand is Don't give up.
The reason Ane Brun's voice.
It really really must be me because so many say they adore the voice. I believe it's the Emperor's new clothes because each time I hear it annoys the heck out of me it simply makes me grind my teeth! I've tried believe me I have but now I fast forward it each and every time!
I simply cannot imagine why he did not let Melanie do the duties as she did I believe on the tours.
Still each to his own.

A plea.
If you liked this review but because of what I say about Ane Brun's voice wish to put a vote as unhelpful please don't.
Rather just add a comment that you think her voice is wonderful or vice versa.
I will revisit the review and add a suitable apology if one is required of a suitable comment if not.
Just a thought....

I wonder if Peter would ever consider doing a similar treatment of old Genesis songs.....
Watch this space!

Scratch My Back split opinion: it was very slow - monotonous even, and very sad. But it also stripped back the songs to their melodic roots, and then surrounded Gabriel's voice with judicious arrangements which served to support, rather than combat, his voice.

New Blood sounds a similar project, an album of orchestral versions, but this time of Gabriel's own songs. I like it, and some songs are brilliantly done. But there is much less of a sense of reinterpretation. Why keep the bass-line from Don't Give Up? Or the tinkling from Mercy Street? Or the twinkling spashy opening to Red Rain? Sometimes it feels like the score has just been handed round, but with the parts changed from electric to acoustic instruments. So the strings are taking the hi-hat rhythm, the bass is doing the drums, the wind the synth section. If you listen online to his version of Secret World on the New Blood tour, you can see this evidently. If it had been someone else's song, and he'd covered it on Scratch My Back, you can be sure they rhythm would have been jettisoned in favour of a more simple bash at the melody. Instead, a whimsical piano and percussion riff runs through the whole thing, in exactly the same way as the synth and drum riff did in the original.

Perversely then, I feel like some of the versions make unnecessary changes to the fabric of the originals. Why cut the last minutes, the climax of Downside Up, when you have a minute-and-a-half long instrumental opening? Why change and simplify the slow chorus of Digging in the Dirt? Why does Ane Brun not pronounce the 'p's in Don't Give Up? Or Don't Give U' as it might now be titled. On the tour, Solsbury Hill had rather a fun ending, interpolating Beethoven's 9th and other classical tunes - not here.

In a further twist, the songs which didn't make it onto the album are really rather better than some which did. Father, Son, Blood of Eden and Signal to Noise are all worthy versions, and I'd sooner have had those than Mercy Street or In Your Eyes. Though extremely close to the originals, they soothe and build much more effectively than their synthy originals. Signal to Noise is the best track in the whole project, but only available on iTunes.

Put simply, this album sounds too much like 'acoustic versions' of the songs. If you knew nothing about it and came to it, I'm sure that would be fine. But I'm really disappointed in some ways. I do like the album, I like the songs too much not to, and some of the songs I didn't know in the original are excellent: Darkness, Wallflower, The Rhythm of the Heat. But it's telling that the songs I did know in the original are easily my least favourites, and I wonder, when I've gone back and listened to all the original versions, whether I'll have much use for New Blood.

The New Blood CD is not a total failure. The orchestrations are well done, if slightly over-bearing, and Peter Gabriel's voice has lost none of its power, despite his 60+ years. And it is lovely to hear crystal-clear lyrics on some of his old songs; sometimes the originals were quite hard to understand (I wish he had re-done Games Without Frontiers, where the original lyrics always sounded like "She's So Popular" to me). The clearer lyrics give some of these newer versions, especially Intruder, San Jacinto and Darkness, real power and occasionally menace.

But there are some major flaws with this album, which given PG's high standards are disappointing. Solsbury Hill, perhaps PG's best known number, is ruined by a weak orchestral arrangement. And there is some freakish indulgence prior to this track, where PG throws in 5 minutes of near-silent birdsong. But the biggest flaw is the unbelievably weak female vocals. This might be excused as misplaced paternal loyalty, as some of the vocals are done by PG's daughter Melanie. But the worst vocals are saved for Don't Give Up, which was a brilliant duet with Kate Bush in the original but where this new version, with Norwegian singer Ane Brun doing the vocals, is embarrassingly awful. Her nasal twang is so dire it sounds like a failed X Factor audition. A brilliant song about triumphing over adversity is ruined by a dodgy Scandinavian warbler. Pity.