STAINED GLASS STORIES

I'm a bit surprised to see so many 4 and 5 star reviews for this obscure US prog band's only album. Some compare them to YES and GENESIS with a smidgen of GENTLE GIANT. Well I can see the YES comparison with Callan's Squire-like sounding bass, although if you ask me he apes Gary Strater's bass sound from STARCASTLE. GENESIS?, hardly and I'll stand by that! GENTLE GIANT?, hardly x2! What you get here is more of the late-in-the-game prog that US bands put out that tried like the dickens to be the next big YES band, just like STARCASTLE, MIRTHRANDIR and the like. Right from the start, it's a mish-mosh of sounds with no kind of melody or theme and to make matters worse, Paul Sear trys extremely hard to sound serious, but his voice is terrible, (sorry Paul...). "Gong" is an instrumental and the best song on the album. I guess "The Crossing" is where people believe they have a GENTLE GIANT sound, but just because it has a somewhat medival flair, it's gotta be GENTLE GIANT-like. Sorry, Not even close. It's too straight forward to be compared to them. The last song to these ears has the best vocals and it's the only song to have a melody theme pop up more than once. It's actually quite catchy, but still not as classy as a first or second tier prog band. I must admit, they try really hard to be as complicated and proggy as can be, but when there's no memorable melodies, atrocious singing, and cookie-cutter playing it's just not that good. Buy only if you must have every obscure US prog album from the 70's.