Search - Gryphon :: Red Queen to Gryphon 3 / Rain Dance

One of the top 10 70's progressive period

David Higgins | Greenville, FL United States | 05/26/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you like 70's progressive, this is a must have. Instrumental except for a few tracks on Raindances (I guess some lame brain executive decided they could get popular if someone sang.) The instrumentation is the most creative work since Gentle Giant. But whereas GG could never do a studio album to match their live performances, Gryphon's studio work far exceeds much of the early seventies prog era (espa). The interesting thing about that time period is that when you look back at the music and read what the bands were dealing with at the time none of them liked the espa. Yes and Genesis were told by upper management to do extended cuts. They would have actually rather done Supremes covers. King Crimson ended up with Red, a heavy metal album. And Van der Graff Generator ended up so far out there that the entire band decided to be Peter Hammills solo back up band. Gryphon actually "enjoyed" what they were doing, and you can tell it in the compositions and performance.
As far as this CD release, the sound quality is superb. Gryphon was on the Bell lable which disappeared long ago. (Try finding old Sweet or Partridge Family albums. The holy grail of vinyl collection is The PF's Christmas album). I am very pleased with the release. Give it a shot, if you're into the espa."