BEGINNINGS

Sorry, but being a fan of this band going back to 1978, I find the songs on this album to be almost in the "cringing" style. What?, you may ask. Well, what starts out as a somewhat decent instrumental track, "Leave that kitten..." sounds like a lesser track from one of their proper studio albums, somewhat new agey and a bit boring. The next four tracks have vocals. Now, when it comes to songs that give prog that "cheesey" sound, these would fit the bill. Musically, they're the best songs on the album. They all pretty much start out pedestrian with vocals and lyrics that ruin what ends up being some awesome prog as each song reaches the end on a high note. I would say that they rival, to a degree, any of their classics off of the Arista albums musically, but those vocals and those horrible lyrics! UGH! And to make matters worse, the vocals are so poorly recorded it's a pity that any lyrics had to be used. The last two songs are similiar to the first track, better recorded by a mile, but not as adventurous as the vocal tracks. It hard for me to give this album a "good" rating because of the poor vocalization and sound of the middle tracks. But if the instrumental tracks were of high quality, then yes, it would have been at least three stars. But alas, my favorite American prog band's first output only garners a two star rating. Better to get the first two actual studio albums to get an understanding on how REALLY good these guys are.