The album continues the project Gabriel began with his previous album, Scratch My Back, which was orchestral covers of other artists' songs. The idea came about after rearranging Gabriel's songs for orchestra for the second half of shows on the Scratch My Back Tour of 2010. For this album Gabriel continued to work with arrangerJohn Metcalfe. He originally planned to rerecord the songs with home-made instruments, but did not find the range and tone of expression available in existing instruments. "I really didn't want to make this new album all about the hits," Gabriel explained to Mark Blake. "So there's no 'Sledgehammer'… I was unsure at first about 'Red Rain' and about doing 'Don't Give Up' without Kate, but then it felt like it would fit. In the end it worked." The album features a new song, "A Quiet Moment", which originated in his desire to separate "Solsbury Hill" – remade due to huge demand – from the rest of the album. Originally three minutes of silence were to separate "Solsbury Hill", but it was thought this would confuse people, and Gabriel decided that "A Quiet Moment" would work better.
Reception
In The Independent, Andy Gill gave the album three stars out of five and commented, "The prevailing tones are of awed wonder – the aspirant nobility of Downside Up, the dancing woodwind of San Jacinto and In Your Eyes – or expectant tension, most notably in the emotional storm-surges of Red Rain and The Rhythm of the Heat." Writing for the Evening Standard, Pete Clark awarded the album four stars out of five and stated, "In typical Gabriel fashion obvious choices have been avoided: no Sledgehammer or Biko here. Instead, he and arranger/composer John Metcalfe have opted for songs that might best benefit from the grown-up treatment. Mostly, it is a great success." In The Word, David Hepworth stated the album was more successful than Scratch My Back, writing "John Metcalfe's stern string arrangements frame the drama of songs like San Jacinto, In Your Eyes and Red Rain, though there is a tendency for any rhythmic strings to sound like Bernard Hermann soundtracks to Hitchcock movies. Good for an open-topped car ride across the Yorkshire Dales while you're playing hide and seek with the sun."
