There’s something very intriguing about the way in which Peter Green’s first two solo albums represent two very different chapters in the troubled musicians life. The End of the Game was essentially the soundtrack to his mental breakdown, an appropriately dark and haunting album that marked the darkest period of his career, while In the Skies, released 9 years later is a much more up-beat and positive affair. Recorded after eight years away from the music scene due to his mental health problems (a lot of that time being spent in mental health institutes), In the Skies marked not only a return to music for Green but also a return to some sort of normality. In the Skies was a comeback album in more ways than one; it was an album that had an air of hope about it, not just in terms of musical promise but also in terms of his life, as it seemed to have a much more positive and optimistic atmosphere than anyone could have expected following the years of turmoil that preceded it.
The album’s surprisingly buoyant feel is perhaps best represented by the beautiful, uplifting instrumental, Proud Pinto, which astonishingly was the first piece that Green came up with after picking up a guitar for the first time in years. It’s as if this piece stemmed directly from the joyous release of playing again, with Green’s beautifully melodic and fluid guitar playing evoking feelings of relief and contentment. Understanding the context surrounding such a song only adds to its atmosphere and emotional impact, something which is true of much of the material on In the Skies and indeed the album as a whole. During the period surrounding In the Skies’ conception, Green proposed to and quickly married a young Jewish woman, a turn of events that would influence a fair chunk of the album’s material. The couple collaborated on the lyrics for three of the album’s four vocal tracks; the title track, Seven Stars and Just for You, the former two standing out as clear highlights on the album. The mystical Seven Stars was inspired by the couple’s bible reading sessions while the beautiful title track is equally spiritual in its lyrical content and is delivered with a particularly strong vocal performance from Green.
Not every song reflects Green’s new found contentment however; A Fool No More harks back to Green’s earlier, more traditional blues playing and is a rather downbeat, melancholic number, while the similarly subdued yet beautiful closing instrumental Apostle is the polar opposite in tone to the highly exuberant Proud Pinto. Both feature the guitarist’s typically gentle and emotional guitar playing, which has always been at its most evocative when expressing sadness, a mood which is absent for much of the album besides the two aforementioned tracks. This is perhaps one of the reasons why much of In the Skies, although excellent, feels somewhat safe compared to some of the material that preceded it (prior to Green’s time away from music). The album lacks some of the adventure and creativity that crept into Green’s music during the Then Play On era of Fleetwood Mac as well as the dark, tortured sound of his first solo album The End of the Game. However there is a certain charm and mystical quality to In the Skies that makes for a very intriguing listen and besides a couple of slightly weaker moments, with the entirely forgettable Funky Chunk being the worst offender, the album manages to be consistently enjoyable throughout.
With In the Skies, Green managed to produce a comeback album of a much higher quality than anyone could have expected given his state of health. Seemingly representing a brief period of solace in his troubled life, the album’s surprisingly light-hearted atmosphere is just as intriguing as the dark, twisted mood of its predecessor and while nothing on In the Skies quite reaches the heights of Green’s former glories it comes much closer than anything else he’s done since his infamous mental breakdown and resulting hiatus.
