EIGHT MILES HIGH

This is the last album where the group will use the prefix The to their name, thus entering the 70's and their prog era with a superb album. The classic quartet is now definitely leaving the pure pop or psych/pop realm they had specialized in so far. And the artwork is setting the tone with the grab the ring front picture and especially with the excellent back cover picture featuring the band in concert in some underground club. This is really the first of string of classic albums and the tone is set by the wild title track, the cover of Byrds' best song.

But let's check out the four shorter tracks on the A-side: Landing is a solid hard rocker, harder than anything they had done until now, and Hay's voice and pronunciation (one of the best by non-English native speaker around the world) is simply perfect. You'd swear this is an early hard rock group somewhere between Uriah, Purple or Wishbone. Better to come is the 6-muns Devil's Servant, where to group show they've got all the chops, including dramatics and often changing tempo. Gerritzen's bass playing is outstanding, but guitarist Kooymans gets prime exposure from this track, where singer Hay also indulge into some flute playing. One Huge Road is about The Road and maybe the least convincing track, but segues into the superb Everyday's Torture, which indeed I could listen to almost everyday. Together with Servant, Torture are two typical semi-progressive tracks

The flipside is filled by the Byrds song Eight Miles High, in one of its best ever version, even if in its sidelong version, it can't avoid some lengths and the succession of each member's respective solos. Certainly the first classic GE album, 8MH gets most of its reputation for the sidelong cover, but this writer prefers to remember three tracks on the first side.