Compared to Ezrin, who was more insistent on dictating the arrangements, Fripp favoured a more spontaneous work process that allowed Gabriel to contribute his own musical ideas.

[13] In a 1980 interview with Smash Hits, Gabriel stated that he failed to attain the results he desired on his second solo release in part because of his creative differences with Fripp.

[14] Larry Fast, who played synthesisers on the album, thought that Fripp's production choices did not aversely impact his contributions and felt that the drier and more intimate arrangements dictated which "sonic colors and textures and spaces to work with.

The effect was achieved by gluing strips of torn paper onto a photo of Gabriel in the appropriate pose, taken by photographer Peter Christopherson, then using Tipp-Ex correction fluid to touch up the spots where they met his fingers.

[16] In NME, Nick Kent wrote that the album's "brazenly left-field veneer left me cold at first, and it's only now that its strengths are starting to come across ... once past the disarming non-focus veneer, there's a quietly remarkable talent at work – quiet in the manner of the slow fuse burn of 'Mother of Violence' with Roy Bittan's piano work outstripping anything he's turned out for either Bruce Springsteen or David Bowie.

Closer to the root of the album, there's a purity, a strength to the songs individual enough to mark Gabriel out as a man whose creative zenith is close at hand.