Charts: UK #7, AUS #25, CAN #30, GER #24, ITA #9, NLD #9, NOR #5, NZ #38, SWE #8, US #38. UK, GER, FRA & US: Gold.
--Moribund The Burgermeister
Odd bubbling and beating sounds mark the beginning of the album, but when the chorus begins it all turns into a solid rock song with lots of pathos. It is the story of a disturbing case of a whole town catching St Vitus’ dance. Not bad as a beginning, and the grotesque qualities leave quite a lasting impression.
--Solsbury Hill
The second song is the most enduring hit of Gabriel’s whole solo career. It begins in an unusual but driving 7/8, almost like a folk song, before it unleashes its power and ends in hunted vocal eruptions. Gabriel addresses feelings of doubt, loneliness and changes in life, topics that are quite likely to have risen in him when he left Genesis.
--Modern Love
The song with the most bang on the album. Lots of power and a good deal of aggression are brought to bear on lyrics rich in innuendo that talk about love without feeling, desire and unfulfillment. Though the song was released as a single it soon dropped from the standard repertoire.
--Excuse Me
Playful, silly, comedic – all this makes up this weird barber shop song. The lyrics are enigmatic rather stream-of-consciousness than narrative. The song creates a peculiar relaxed mood that seems a bit fishy. It is, however, a wonderfully eccentric introduction for Humdrum and its brooding mood.
--Humdrum
The most depressed piece on the album. Gabriel uses fantastic word imagery to describe the eponymous monotony and torpor. It begins with piano sounds that have an unusual stereo distortion. Other means used are Latin-American motives carefully placed wrong, melancholy acoustic guitars and thick blankets of synth strings. This song points ahead to how Gabriel would later combine musical and lyrics expression.
--Slowburn
Back in the days of vinyl this would be the first song on the second, altogether weaker side of the record. The arrangements are just too pretentious and too contrived. Slowburn comes with a whining lead guitar and a strong beat. It is a bizarre love song complete with heartache. Fast changes in the speed, rattling drum fills and glam rock borrowings are meant to intrigue, but all they do is to kill of any interest in the words. There is rarely any link between the content and the music.
--Waiting For The Big One
A blues, and it is celebrated as such from the counting in and loose piano runs to the lofty choir finale. Lots of drama, lots of big opera. In between, with a disturbed voice, is Gabriel’s punning description of the wait for the big one. It illustrates the futility and emptiness, though the musical devices are used to a degree where the become almost comical.
--Down The Dolce Vita
And here is a full Wagner orchestra running over the listener at full speed. It retains the energy and continues as a rock song. The lyrics express a certain enigma and futility again, but do so with a grand gesture. Lots of gimmicks in the arrangements (such as the general pause in the middle part) vie for the listener’s attention. It would take Gabriel more than three decades to be able to create suspense by these means (in his Scratch My Back project – with Bob Ezrin again as a co-producer). Numerous musical turns convey the mood of the lyrics less successfully than Gabriel may have hoped for.
--Here Comes The Flood
Gabriel himself would later call this version of the song overproduced. Unfortunately, the studio team could not think of anything else but to turn the eschatological visions of inner torpor into a catchy anthem by the usual devices of bluesrock (dramatic changes in dynamism, elegiac guitar solos and beating tambourines).
--All in all...
The album is a first attempt for Gabriel try and build a career as a solo artist. He has not quite found his feet yet, but the large potential is evident. If you are keen to discover the music of Peter Gabriel you may find this one of the more difficult entry points.
(genesis-news.com/article/peter-gabriel-i-car-cd-review/) by Thomas Schrage. English by Martin Klinkhardt

Album recorded and mixed in the analog domain - AAD. That is, a minimum of digital processing.
A=Analog. D=digital. The first letter stands for how the music was recorded. The second letter for how it was mixed. The third letter stands for the format (all CD's will have D as the last letter).