UNLOCK THE GATES

This was really the last Gypsy album, although band co-founder James Walsh would keep plugging away as the James Walsh Gypsy Band for several years. That group was pretty far removed from the original Latin & funk-inspired Gypsy sound. After an amazing double- album debut the band steadily retreated from that sound in favor of a decidedly Midwestern American jam band sound, with this being not only the last studio release but the least progressive as well.

Besides Walsh the band still featured guitarist and sometimes percussionist Enrico Rosenbaum who in reality was most responsible for any progressive leanings the group may have had in their earlier days. Sadly Rosenbaum was already suffering from substance abuse problems that would eventually contribute to his demise at a relatively young age, and his contributions here are pretty weak compared to the band's first couple of records.

Besides moving away from an almost Santana-like sound of their early music, Gypsy also put out shorter and shorter songs and albums as the seventies wore on, with this being both their shortest album and the one with the fewest fully developed compositions. Many of the tracks here are little more than a guitar riff or two fluffed up with horns and repetitive, shallow lyrics (check out the banal "Make Peace with Jesus" for a prototypical example). Other tracks like "Toin It" and "Smooth Operator" come off more like smooth West Coast- sounding pop rock in the vein of Pablo Cruise, Firefall and the like.

Rosenbaum and James Johnson are both competent and occasionally very good guitarists, and Randy Cates who joined the band for their prior record is a decent but unexceptional bassist. Everyone but drummer Bill Lordan delivers vocals at one time or another, and some of the harmonies are quite good for a band that by this point was more of a self-professed jam band than one with high vocal ambitions. And Walsh is a good keyboardist but this album is not one that takes as much advantage of his talents as any of the prior ones do.

In the end this is a mellow, decent record but a rather sad ending for a band that burst upon the progressive music scene in the wake of Woodstock with a San Francisco-inspired spicy sound that should have made them a much bigger thing than they turned out to be. Such is the fickleness of contemporary music; the band suffered as much from poor promotion as they did their own lack of musical innovation, and in the end have been relegated to b-list status in the annals of progressive American rock. Two stars for fans but not really recommended for anyone else.

peace