ANIMAL NOTES
Crack The Sky
•Heavy Prog
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Studio Album, released in 1976 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. We Want Mine (4:54) - John Palumbo / lead & backing vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar
Artwork: Guy Billout and to Quinino for the last updates Edit this entry |
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CRACK THE SKY Animal Notes ratings distribution
(43 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(21%)
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(37%)
Good, but non-essential (40%)
Collectors/fans only (2%)
Poor. Only for completionists (0%)
CRACK THE SKY Animal Notes reviews
Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings
Collaborators/Experts Reviews
PROG REVIEWER

Coming off the quirky but relatively conservative self-titled debut, John Palumbo led Crack The Sky through eight engaging numbers on 'Animal Notes'. The brooding atmosphere of "Animal Skins" and ambitious melancholy of "Maybe I Can Fool Everybody (Tonight)" highlight Side 1. The musical themes in "Maybe..." are extremely affective, pulling distinct emotions from the listener: sadness, loneliness, longing. Aided by Palumbo's near-genius lyric writing, "Maybe..." remains a highlight of their catalog. Side 1 is rounded off with the harder rocking "We Want Mine" and "Wet Teenager", setting themselves apart thanks to dextrous playing and Palumbo's brilliant wordplay.
Side 2 gets proggier. "Rangers At Midnight" has everything you could want: a well- written storyline, an impressive dynamic range, excellent playing, unique arrangement ideas. Next track "Virgin...No" brings things to an entirely different plane, a hard rocking tune with curious shifts in tempo and time signature. "Invaders From Mars" finds Palumbo sounding like Genesis-era Peter Gabriel, and the music isn't far from the more linear material on 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway'. Its final crashing flourishes lead to the sober "Play On", a smart, introspective ending.
There aren't a ton of keyboards here, a trait that sets artrock apart from the symphonic end of the genre. The guitar work on "Rangers At Midnight" takes the place of keyboards with commanding leads and themes, much in the way Brian May worked inside Queen's most ambitious songs. The players impress subtly, allowing Palumbo's songwriting gift to be the main focus. Though poor Crack The Sky albums outnumber good ones, the good ones should be investigated by even the most demanding prog fan.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk

Not sure they achieved that feat for more than a few record spins. Complete lack of inspiration, and a journeyman attitude makes such an album best avoided by progheads looking for passionate music.
PROG REVIEWER

SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams

"Rangers At Midnight" always sounded to me like a song that Gabriel era Genesis might have written, had they hailed from Canada.
The rest of the album is a more standard hard rock fare, with John Palumbo's sometimes political, and usually humorous lyrics. Then their's "Play On". I usually skip over this too- maudlin track.
4 stars, partly for being a big part of the soundtrack of my youth. But where this album is good, it's very good.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

Without wishing to appear to be judging a book by its cover, one look at the band image on the reverse of "Animal notes" does tend to confirm that Crack the Sky did not have any real prog ambitions. The smart outfits and long permed hair identify the band far more readily with the hairspray AOR of their American peers such as Styx and Boston.
With that in mind when listening to this the band's second album, this is nevertheless an album of good quality songs which go beyond being mere pop affairs. All the tracks are composed by vocalist John Palumbo, who ensures that he is given plenty of opportunity to display his talents, the twin lead guitar of Jim Griffiths and Rick Witkowski sharing the remaining limelight when it becomes available.
The four tracks on side one of the album are pretty standard pop rock affairs including the obligatory ballad "Maybe I can fool everybody tonight". The verse chorus structure which prevails offers little real opportunity for development of the songs beyond the inclusion of a brief guitar workout. The musicianship is of a consistently high quality, but we search in vain on side one for a standout track to give the album an identity.
Side two opens with the most ambitious track, "Rangers at midnight". This mini-suite in three parts (or "scenes") which runs to 7½ minutes, sets out with the southern rock feel of bands such as The Band and Little Feat. The transition to Scene 2 ("Night patrol") offers an intriguing instrumental section which could have been further developed. The final section, "Let's lift our hearts up" becomes a raucous barroom sing-a-long.
"Invaders from Mars" is the oddest track, lyrically at least. The song appears to be a sort of Bowie tribute (or parody perhaps), both lyrically and in terms of the sound and style.
In all, a proficient but largely ordinary album. While the songs are well written and performed, they lack the spark which is needed to make the album worthy of recommendation. In prog terms, "Animal notes" sits very much on the periphery.
Latest members reviews
For a much too brief period in the late 1970s, 'album-oriented rock' (AOR) radio stations were
popular. On an AOR station, you could hear great music from bands that the pop stations did
not ordinarily play. One of the darlings of AOR stations was Crack The Sky, especially the very
catchy tr
... (read more)
Report this review (#635165) | Posted by NDMET | Friday, February 17, 2012 | Review Permanlink
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