Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel 4: Security

SECURITY picks up on the structural advances made on Gabriel's previous album (the third of his untitled solo recordings), by combining his creepy, quirky, post-art rock leanings with Third World-rhythmic patterns. A successful fusion of the modern (synths, heavily-processed guitars) and the ancient (tribal rhythms, lyrical themes that reach into the ancestral memories of various cultures), SECURITY was both Gabriel's most sophisticated and most accessible work to date. Infectious, funky rhythms allow mega-hit "Shock The Monkey" and the propulsive "Kiss Of Life" to transcend Gabriel's more cerebral tendencies, exploring the visceral end of things. While there's a celebratory feel to much of the music here, tunes like "The Rhythm of the Heat" reach back to the darker, ominous tone of Gabriel's last album, but throughout SECURITY, Gabriel sounds like a man who's been liberated from the constraints of his old habits, dancing up a storm without ever losing sight of his conceptual/thematic goals.