IN A STATE OF FLUX

In one of the Earth and Fire CDs that I have, there is a clear statement at the CD sleeve that "Earth and Fire is Holand's answer to Genesis". Is this statement right? It depends. If you wanna look at the angle of symphonic approach to music, the statement seems to be right. But if you look at the angle of "similarity" in style with Genesis, well .. it's really far from this, in my opinion. For sure this band is legendary due to the fact that it was born during the glory days of rock and prog music. I love their song titled as "Fanfare" but I could not really enjoy all albums of the band. The main characteristic of the band is a touch of symphonic music with classical influence and female vocal. Don't expect that the music is similar with Renaissance who also featured female vocal (Ani Haslam). These two bands are not alike, musically.

This album is quite weak in composition even though there are some songs which are quite OK. For sure, the title track is quite okay to my ears. Well, at least the guitar solo is quite enjoyable. The inclusion of percussion work in "I Don't Know Why" is quite enjoyable for me personally. I feel like listening to a bit of Santana music. The rest, there is nothing that truly peculiar about this album. The reason I have this album is for the sake of completing my collection, that's it. I do not recommend you to purchase this album for other reason. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW