NIGHT OVER NEVER

I think it's irresponsible to rate a prog album basing on its sound quality. Yes good sound is always more than wanted, but, on the other hand, to be precise, we appreciate a work of music, not a release. Otherwise (for example) Foxtrot by Genesis should be rated 4.5 to 5 for the 1st US press on pink scroll Charisma, 2 to 2.5 for the UK orig and 3 to 3.5 for the Japanese vinyl pressings and some CD versions. It would be absurd, admit it. Yes the sound quality of the only (at least to my knowledge) available live recording by the classic US prog band Babylon is a sort of cauchemar. If compared to the quality of the live recordings by (exempli gratia) Dream Theater. But it's nevertheless OK enough to clearly discern the details of arrangement, instrumentation, musicianship etc. Of course the music is TOO good to put up with the low sound quality. But don't forget, this recording plus the band's first and only studio album is ALL we have. That's all that Babylon left behind. So, I think we have no reason to pick and choose. As for me, I forget about the bad sound (as much as possible) and enjoy the amazing music.

As Hifi-klubben says: "Bad sound kills great music".

This is a live recording that has the same quality as you would get if you recorded a concert with a telephone, standing in the audience. The sound quality is on a level that this album should never have been released at all. I can understand why this is released though, it's a long lost band that only released one proper album and here they are with a live recording, for the archives. It should have a warning sign on the cover "beware, bad soundquality".

The LP release is otherwise really good, lots of extra goodies thrown in. A nice booklet with pictures of the band, lyrics and with a japanese obi.

If you can get past the awful sound quality, it's easy to hear how great this band really was. The songs are long and have all the signatures of great music, great melodies, great chops and lots of twists and turns. Two songs that I was not familiar with before turned out to be really great composition-wise. The band have all the marks of fellow north american bands like Pentwater, Mirthrander etc with a very heavy leaning towards Genesis.

The music: great! The sound: awful!

Decide for yourself.