33

I only have the LP version of this essential release. The sound is as boxy and dry as one comes to expect from most Soviet Bloc studios, but no doubt about it, even minus a bass- player (although someone has a Moog bass pedal in there, and maybe even a bass guitar - the sound's too muddy to be certain) this is formidable stuff. The sessions sound a little hurried - the fade on track one is crude. But Hladik and Semelka had by now almost perfected their impression of Focus's Akkerman and Van Leer - there is lots of lyrical, synth- driven symphonic wonder as well as vampy passages for Hladik's fireworks on here, which holds together well despite the track lengths - much better, say, than 1977's Svitanie. Czech is not a terribly pretty language when it's sung by a guy who sounds a bit like David Coverdale with tonsilitis, but any adventurous prog fan would be a pillock to miss out on this one.