PLEASE DON'T TOUCH!

Although a probably less balanced work than his predeccesor ("Voyage of the acolyte") or his succesor ("Spectral Mornings"), probably because of the presence of many guests or because it explores too many sound alternatives (although who said this was a bad thing) making it a quite heterogeneus effort, this album still stands as one of the finest works this genius amongst men has provided in his career.

Amongst the tracks which make this album a truly smooth experience are "Narnia", an excellent showcase of the literary piece, "Carry on up the Vicarage", which although has strange vocal effects, it still provides a good amount of good textures and psychedelic effects, being as well one of the most symphonic-natured songs of the album. "Racing in A", although landing more in the land of conventionalism, is still a good rock song, with a good vocal work and energetic guitar arrangements. And what can we say about "Kim". The good woman must have smiled the first time she listened to this song. It is a classic and a good example of the tamdem Steve and his bother John could be. "Hoping love will last" is a curious experiment, including a soul vocalist in a progressive rock song. "Land of a Thousand autums" is a kind of intro, filled with mellotron, for another classic, which, from my humble point of view, was unfairly left out from "Wind and Wuthering" (why the hell they decided to include "Your Own Special Way"?). "The voice of Necam" plays with vocal effects with an ending of classical guitar.

On the other hand, the tracks sung by Ritchie Havens (what a coincidence huh?), "How can I" and "Icarus Ascending" didn't get into me, either because I didn't like his vocal work very much or because, specially in the first case, the slow pace of the songs. The second one, at least, has a quite nice and melodic structure, much in the line of Steve's best proggresive work.