If you discount his involvement in various soundtracks and the fiasco that was the Millennium Dome, Up is Peter Gabriel's first proper album for a full ten years. No harm in that, of course, since the ex-Genesis man's records tend to take a long time to fully absorb - and this is no exception. As oblivious to contemporary trends as ever, Gabriel remains content to leave the notion of traditional songwriting to more conventional souls, instead favouring long, complex arrangements, industrial noise and layer upon layer of textured sound. The production, meanwhile, is consistently claustrophobic and womblike - which is entirely appropriate for an album that's heavily preoccupied with solemn ruminations on childhood and, less frequently, death. While Gabriel's plaintive voice is as distinctive as ever, this is not exactly easy listening, and some will find these lengthy, disparate collages bordering on the unbearably pretentious. A more generous verdict, however, would be to accept Up as an accomplished, impeccably tasteful piece of work that confirms Gabriel as one of the less embarrassing members of pop's aging aristocracy
