AS YOUR MIND FLIES BY

Rare Bird is a fine early seventies prog rock band. Their style reminds me a bit about Aquila and Paladin which means heavily organ driven rock with prog tendencies. As Your Mind Flies By is a very good example of that genre.

The music is basically rock with lots of organ and a hard rock sounding lead singer. The album is pretty diverse as it starts with a hard rocking song What you want to know. The next song Down on the floor continues in the same style and I was loosing patience with the album until the third song came on. Hammerhead is a fine little prog rock song. It has a completely different mood compared to the two first songs. Fortunately the rest of the album is in this vein. I'm thinking starts with some great organ runs and ends with a more rock like structure. The real treat of the album is the epic Flight. Flight is 19+ minutes long and has a lot of different sections. Near the end I even think a bit of Ravel´s Bolero theme is played by the organ. Flight is a very good prog rock song.

The sound quality is very good for the time.

The musicians are very competent and I have to mention Graham Field for his magnificent organ playing throughout the album. It´s really great if you´re into that instrument.

I´ll rate the album 3 stars because I think it´s good but not good enough to be rated excellent. This is simply not my prefered style.