NURSERY CRYME

First, the good news. The creativity and imagination on this album is without peer, intriguing and surprisingly original for 1971. There are different sounds and rhythms on every song and the lyrics are wildly fantastic and deceptively intricate. The bad news is that the production quality is very low and embarrasingly juvenile. Even with the newer remastered cd I just got it sounds muddy and overly disjointed at times. I take into consideration that this was only their 3rd studio album and it featured two new members in Collins and Hackett and I give them a lot of leeway because of it. But there's really no excuse for the awful engineering and the producer's overseeing of the album as a whole. Yes put out "The Yes Album" and ELP released "Tarkus" at the same time and both of them are outstandingly tight arrangement-wise and truly high- fidelity. So where do I rank this one? It still possesses some of the best tunes in prog rock, especially "Musical Box," "Giant Hogweed," and "Fountain of Salmacis." Peter was still finding his voice but his artistic enthusiasm still shines through and Phil's amazing drumming keeps the album on the up and up througout. But, again, the sound is amateurish and puts me off every listen and it's not something I can totally hold against the band members. It just seems like someone in their organization could have realized that other bands in their niche of music were turning out records that were revolutionizing studio techniques at that time and they could have sought out better producers and engineers to work with. Still a classic, but nowhere near SEBTP, The Lamb or even TOTT. Take this one with a grain of salt.