Argh! I knew it!
David Goodwin | Westchester, NY United States | 09/03/2001
(3 out of 5 stars)
"I knew that right after I plunked down the $... for the Japanese reissue of this album, Poptones would reissue it themselves. Bah.In any case...Blue Marble is, and let's establish this right off the bat, *very* different from Present Tense; gone are the latter's more trippy leanings, and Blue Marble as a whole tends more towards what I saw one reviewer call a "spiritual earthiness." It also, in my opinion, isn't quite as strong as Present Tense, although Gary Usher (and this IS Gary Usher's project...Boetccher isn't nearly as involved as he was before) manages to still turn out an impressive piece of work. By the way, if this is anything like the Japanese issue of the CD (and since it shares a tracklisting, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the discs are exactly the same), it's taken from record, NOT from the master tapes...which disappointed me further. If you're looking for something like Present Tense, be wary, but Blue Marble (along with Gladys, and its other VERY well-thought-out tunes) is a worthy purchase in and of itself."