SONG OF THE MARCHING CHILDREN

Very pleasant and with some great musical soundscapes along the way. It took me quite some time to get into Earth & Fire´s music. Maybe the sound quality has something to do with that, after all, I heard all CD versions are bad. And since the only copy I got was one of the first reissues in that format it is little wonder that most of the album sounds muddy. Nevertheless, it is still quite impressive and good, specially if you take in consideration it was recorded in 1971!

I did not find the music particularly striking at first (again, the sound quality?), it seemed a bit dated. Still I enjoy Jerney Kaagman´s voice a lot. She reminds of Annie Haslam (Renaissance), to me one fo the best female singers ever. Gerard Koerts is quite proeminent on his keyboards and his brother Chris is an excellent guitarrist (loved the solo in the instrumental track In The Mountain. a good mix of Focus and Camel). The music in general is very good, but not as great or groundbreaking as some reviews indicate, even the 18+ minutes celebrated title track. Maybe my expectations were too high. Anyway, let´s say that with all its faults I still think this a very good album that deserves to be heard by any prog fan. And please, tell me if there is a real good remastered version out. For what I heard my rating is 3,5 stars.