SECOND BIRTH

I think that my trusted fellow reviewers are right about the lack of positive reviews on this one, but this is not a good album. I am not sure how they got bumped off from the Vertigo label, but this would've been a sub-par release for them also. Maybe that the Vertigo label had deemed the prospects for the future Gravy Train a bit dim (and to the view of this album, one could easily understand it), but GT found refuge on a similar label called Dawn. This album's title is deceptive because it hints at a renewal and one can quickly see that Gravy Train are up to their same old tricks and even the inspiration of their previous albums is lacking. Three tracks found their way on my compilation before I got rid of their albums (needed the shelf space): Morning Coming, Motorway, and the title track. Aside from those three excellent tracks, I have the awkward feeling that a lot of the other tracks are a bit of fillers or second-choice tracks, not intended of course.

This band was IMO never destined for greatness or stardom for too many elements were lacking, but they remain a band to discover but this is no emergency. There are plenty of other British prog band from that era that are worth investigating before: check-out their label-mates Tonton Macoute, Spring, Mellow Candle, and the absolutely fabulous Comus (in a similar genre if you like raunchy vocals), to check out what the Dawn label was releasing in parallel. You might want to investigate into Gnidrolog and Audience (it is much more urgent to discover those two), for delightful raunchy prog rock. Not their best album, to say the least.

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