LEFTOVERTURE

Taken as a whole, I find "Leftoverture" to be an excellent, if somewhat overrated album that strongly straddles the line between radio-friendly accessibility and the progressive dynamics in response to their more experimental peers at the time overseas. The song writing, and especially instrumental performances are first rate. Bass and guitar standout for me, with the keys becoming very cheesy and overwhelming as the songs pass by; Ehart's drumming didn't leave any impression on me (which is usually a bad sign). The obvious hit of "Carry On My Wayward Son" steals the show with a splendid combination of hard rock and complex composition, but successive tracks hit the mark more often than not. Low points are usually when the listener gets frustrated with the repetitive pitch of the vocals, but fortunately the band throws in enough instrumental highlights to out-do any serious damage caused by shrill singing.

The end result is a unique sound which many will enjoy, even those whose first exposure to "Carry On..." was in the credit sequence of the movie "Anchor Man"; however, "Leftoverture" hardly deserves to be rated as high as some of the other pillars of progressive music-- there simply isn't as much going on here as in most of the other greats.

Songwriting 3 Instrumental Performances 3 Lyrics/Vocals 3 Style/Emotion/Replay 3