THE BREAKING OF THE WORLD

Disclosure number 2: I am not one of those who dislikes a band because they sound similar to one of my favorites from the seventies. So when Glass Hammer released songs, and even whole albums that sounded very similar to Yes' style, I was delighted, not offended. Jon Anderson liked them enough to sing on one of their albums. Yet something on this album just seems wrong.

Perhaps Steve Babb and Fred Schendel were still seething about Yes appropriating their Anderson sound-alike Jon Davison when they were recording this album. Maybe it was unconscious. But many of the tracks on this album sound to me like they have deliberately played Yes licks woven into them, often in a different context to hide them from inattentive listeners.

I hear sections of Perpetual Change, Awaken, and too much of Siberian Khatru, among others across this disc. They stand out to my ears, as I've probably heard the original songs hundreds, if not thousands of times in my life, as prog has been the soundtrack of my life for close to half a century now. And yet, I still find this album compelling.

Despite the issue I mentioned above, the style is not a clone of Yes, or any other band for that matter. It's the style Glass Hammer has been honing for some time. An original symphonic prog that has always paid tribute to their forebears by wearing their influences on their sleeves.

Standout tracks to me are "Third Floor", that starts out with a Mike Kennealy-like guitar riff, then moves to a Khatru lick behind a slightly jazzy verse, moving through sound that refer to King Crimson and Gentle Giant, then "A Bird When It Sneezes", a very short piece that sound's like Bill Bruford's fusion. I also especially like "Babylon", another Gentle Giant flavored track that's now of my favorite Glass Hammer pieces.

I've listened to this album enough times now that I am not disturbed by the Yes licks anymore, but they still stand out to me. And I give it 4 stars.

Disclosure number 3: Windows Media Player on my computer identifies this album as "Cronometree", Glass Hammer's album from 2000. This is definitely not that album.

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