CADMIUM

Sky

Eclectic Prog

2.38 | 36 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

This is my first review on this site, and for that I decided to give my opinion on an album that doesn't yet have a full review posted.

I first became aware of Sky in the early 1980s with their second album. I quickly found their first album as well, and became a fan of both albums. The third album came out not long after that, and I was disappointed. It still had some good tracks, but not the level of energy of the other two. After that, "Forthcoming" was awfully boring.

I spotted "Cadmium" in a record store while traveling in London in 1984, decided to give them another chance, and bought it on casette (carrying a vinyl record in my backpack would have been impractical, and CDs were just appearing on the horizon). I did not give it a listen until I returned home a month later. It has been a long time since I last played it, so I fished it out of the bottom drawer for a close listening.

This album is an improvement over "Forthcoming", but it is far from Sky at their best. The weakest tracks, such as Troika (based on Prokovief's Lieutenant Kije) and Fayre, are lackluster performances. Two tracks written by Alan Tarney, A Girl in Winter and Return to Me, come off better, but they are middle-of-the-road, as are Night and The Boy from Dundee. I do like Mother Russia (nothing to do with the superior work by Renaissance) and Then and Now, but the best two tracks are Telex from Peru and Son of Hotta. Both of these hark back to "Sky 2", with the former recalling that album's Scipio (with its many bright little melodies), and the latter trying its best to live up to its family heritage, but ultimately falling short.

I no longer have "Forthcoming" in my collection, but I would give it one star from memory. This is better, but Sky definitely hit their peak in "Sky 2" (with Francis Monkman) and never returned to the same heights. This album gets two stars only.

rsmoore | 2/5 | 2006-8-21

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