Dia G 21.02.10 (5) - Crack The Sky - Crack Attic (The Best of Crack The Sky) (1997 UK)

Crack The Sky - Crack Attic (The Best Of Crack The Sky)
My rip @ 320 full artwork enclosed

Review by Trotsky (http://www.progarchives.com)

Crack The Sky is one of those odd bands I often change my mind about. Sometimes I think main songwriter John Palumbo was a real unfulfilled talent, and at other times I think that there was just a lot of hype over nothing. This compilation album is all I've ever heard from the band though, and while there's enough to convince me that Crack The Sky is a good rock band, I can safely say that their brand of art-rock is certainly going to disappoint many prog-rock fans.

I mean take the catchy She's A Dancer ... it's basically a decent AOR song, with some funk and sax ... could have been a hit for Foreigner or Boston, this one! And that's just one of many enjoyable, not really prog songs tha Crack The Sky have to offer. The Beatlesque ballad Long Nights (despite a very sloppy feel on the drums) is more than a match for the likes of Badfinger, the excellent Invaders from Mars is a borderline-glam rock tour de force that wouldn't be out of place on David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album, and while there's some great guitar soloing in Mind Baby there's very little that's progressive about it, either. I'm also firmly of the opinion that Crack The Sky's early 80s material was a clear influence on the hair-rock bands like Def Leppard ... one listen to Hot Razors In My Heart will convince you of that!

Crack The Sky's prog credentials are based on meaty tracks like the multi-dimensional Rangers At Midnight (part Elton John/Todd Rundgren balladry, part Queen-influenced guitar pyrotechnics), the riff heavy epic Nuclear Apathy, the emotional Ice, which has a nice string-dominated mid-section, the off-beat proto-metal of White Music and a couple of gems off the first album (A Sea Epic and Sleep) that didn't make it on here. Despite the painful omissions (and just how many compilations are targeted at the prog-rock fan?) the presence of Rangers At Midnight and Ice alone make this a worthy introduction to the band.

With five tracks off 1975's Crack The Sky, four off 1976's Animal Notes, three off 1978's Safety In Numbers, three off the 1980's White Music and just the one off 1981's Photoflamingo, this compilation does seem to offer a nice overview of Crack The Sky's best material, although. Incidentally, the Safety In Numbers tracks are a real curiousity in that Palumbo wrote them, but left the band before recording his vocal parts, which were taken by new singer Gary Chapell. By the time of White Music, however, Palumbo was back ... but as most of the other original members were out, it soon became obvious that the band's best days were in the past As such this album is a pretty decent overview of both the highs and lows of Crack The Sky's style.

If you're going to go for relatively obscure American acts of the 70s, I can say that Crack The Cky is nowhere near as good as Pavlov's Dog, but far more entertaining than Ambrosia ... while not really sounding like either one! I'd say Todd Rundgren/Utopia fans will be the most likely to get something out of this band. ... 50% on the MPV scale.

By Eric

mp3 (320 Kbps) y FLAC

LOOK FOR: ATTICAL y ATTICAF1-3