review by thomas

Notably an album without a Dylan cover, but with other covers such as ”Give Me the Good Earth” and ”Launching Place”. This was the third record in a row that began with a 10-minute song, in this case it’s “Give Me the Good Earth” that pales in comparison with the two previous albums starters. It’s lousy in its main part but with a good instrumental part in the middle. The other songs on side A were like the starter not very good, although “I’ll Be Gone” is a decent rocker. On side B we find gold in the purest form on the instrumental and quite complex “Sky High” which is highlighted by Slade’s fibes drums and percussion work. And the motherlode wasn’t ebbing since “Earth Hymn” parts 1 and 2 came after. It begins with some glockenspiel work then moves into a hard progressive song with the words “Listen all around/Symphony of sound will take you…” and it was exactly what this song did. And that amazing end part of the song! A fast up-tempo rhythm with a ton of Moog sounds and Roger’s special guitar style. “Be Not too Hard” is the only thing that stains side B. It’s a trying-to-be-sweet-song-with-poetic-lyrics that fails utterly; in Sweden we call this “smör” (butter) but I don’t have a clue regarding what’s the English counterpart to this word.