STAIRCASE TO THE DAY

Add another half star for 2.5!! A lot of progheads will choose this one to start with because of the Roger Dean cover, but let me assure you this is not the way to go about it: I sometimes feel it is better to work chronologically and in Gravy Train's case, this is certainly the case.

This last album is Gravy Train's swansong and I think they must've known this was so because I feel the enthusiasm is lacking completely. They tried hard to have a hit with the radio-friendly opener Starlight, but somehow this is not convincing. In my compilation, only the title track and The Last Day managed to find their space (but I was also running out of it ;-), but this album IMO is a better album than the previous Second Birth.

Somehow with Gravy Train, one never feel that they made too few of their albums to prove their worth (don't get me wrong they were worthy in their early career) but failed to develop on a promising debut, unlike other lesser known early 70's British prog bands (Gnidrolog, Audience, Titus Groan, Tonton Macoute, Spring etc.......). Gravy Train simply did not arrive at the train station on time, and only managed to jump on the prog bandwagon. Had all of their albums been released two years before (from 68 to 72) than they actually did (instead of 70 to 74), I would not be holding the same opinion.