IF

I am something of a fan of the early period when they were a more melodic ,perhaps 'traditional' symph prog band. It appears though that GH's main ambition was always to morph into Yes as was made clear when they employed Jon Anderson for vocal duties on Culture Of Ascent.Now its Jon Anderson sound-a -like Jon Davison and a style of symphonic prog that is like swimming through treacle. I'm not keen on this at all. Just seems very studied and is basically too lack lustre for my taste. Sadly there are no longer those hooks in their music that used to exist and even the compositional side seems to be lacking as well.

EDIT 4/11/2012 I recently acquired Cor Cordium. Much to my surprise I enjoy that album very much so I have gone back to this to give it another listen without the apparent wax in my ears! I do have my reservations about the Yes comparison and I do prefer Glass Hammer music to be a little more 'loose' but this does have much to enjoy nevertheless. I think the band were trying something a little different here and it takes time to develop a new approach. Jon Davison is the star on this album.So emmotive he carries this all the way and the band get behind that. I have decided to upgrade my rating to 4 stars from 2 stars. My next edit in 2 years time will probably make it 5 stars!