The last time Peter Gabriel released a whole album of original material was in 2002. Tony Blair was prime minister, Wikipedia was just getting started, and the Twin Towers in New York had barely been down a year. Given the passage of time, one has to wonder about the voice, which tends to weaken and lose precision when a singer crosses the threshold into senior citizenship.
Thankfully there are no such worries with i/o, Peter Gabriel’s 10th solo studio album, with his soulful larynx projecting even more gracefully than he did on Where The Sour Turns To Sweet, the opening track of Genesis’ 1969 debut album From Genesis To Revelation. Moreover, he has the same range he drew upon for Supper’s Ready – the surrealist prog opera from his old band’s fourth album Foxtrot – still at his disposal. Genesis themselves closed for business last year, so to hear Gabriel soaring undiminished feels like something of a miracle.
