CRACK THE SKY

A few weeks ago, I had the surprise to find CTS had been included on the Archives, but from memories of my Canadian teenhood and the few aural encounters I had with them, I had problems relating them to prog. My souvenir was of an average radio-friendly hard-rock band that had a promising debut album, but little more to offer the teen I was then and the prog buff adult I have become. So I set out to see if the national library had anything to lend, and much to my surprise, they did

CTS's debut album is a rather tight rock that approaches progressive moments - their third track Sea Epic is not far from Kansas (for the guitars) meeting Ambrosia (for the string arrangements), but mostly develops straight-forward short rock songs dominated by the guitars in general but the keys make regular appearances on this record, something that is to diminish with further albums. Robots and Sleep are also rather pleasant tracks, and Ice is quite inspired and maybe the most progressive track on the album, but there are some real stinkers (Dancer just to name one). On the whole this first album is, as I remembered it, worthy of notice. Too bad the following albums do not hold the promise made with this one.

Just in case you care enough to investigate, this album was coupled with their fourth studio - but fifth overall - album (an odd non-sequential pairing) by Lifesong Record in 8! (cat# LSCD 8801). While the debut is worth your investigation in case you have no other inspiration, the other record is definitely not.