IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

The underrating of this album has always puzzled me. The complaints tend to be along the lines of, "It's a shameless carbon-copy of the far superior original." First of all, if this album were a carbon copy of the original (and I'd be the last to deny the many similarities), what is wrong with that? Why give the former five-star "Essential" status and dog so viciously on the latter?

To me, this album is actually SUPERIOR to the debut. All the songs which have direct comparisons are just as good. Only "Pictures of a City" is inferior to its equivalent on "In the Court", "21st Century Schizoid Man". But "Cadence and Cascade" is at least equal in quality to "I Talk to the Wind" and the same goes for "In the Wake of Posiedon" as compared to "Epitaph". "Moonchild" has no equivalent here, and so much the better - all that means is that this album doesn't waste seven minutes of vinyl as the end of that song did.

In addition to the songs which are similar, there is also the "Peace" reprisals which are short enough that they shouldn't bother anybody and lend the album a coherence. Plus, the guitar on these is very pretty. "Cat Food" has no equivalent before or since, by any artist, and it's a great song - probably the closest song in spirit would be "The Great Deceiver" but the two really don't sound anything alike. And "The Devil's Triangle" is also here, which for my money might just as well have been cut in half but it still isn't the waste of space that "Moonchild" was.

These are all strong songs, and as a whole this album is actually better than the debut. I sometimes grow bored with that one, feeling that a couple of the tracks drag for too long - this one has more songs, and they are more compact, and if it had been their debut rather than "In the Court" I'm sure it would receive more of the recognition it rightfully deserves.