CLOSE TO THE EDGE

I'm probably one of a small minority of Prog Archives members that actually bought Close To The Edge in 1972. Despite knowing it so well, it has already been rated over a thousand times here so there's no need to provide even the broadest of outlines for its three songs; a cursory mention of each may even be redundant. Foremost among these three is the side-long title track, something that was still a novelty at the time of the album's release. It's perhaps ironic that in the space of a few short years this conceit became one of the sticks with which critics would beat the then ailing beast of progressive rock.

The other songs, And You And I and Siberian Khatru, are more than just ''chasers'' for the epic title track. Steve Howe tuning his guitar at the start of And You And I even sounds good. Interestingly, Siberian Khatru is the only song that isn't a multi-part suite and for me it doesn't quite match the quality of the other tracks, good though it is. Close To The Edge may not be as abstruse as it first appears, and I've read comments elsewhere that it's not even that progressive. It's certainly not perfect. However, there are a handful of albums that should be in every prog collection and this is one of those albums.