IN HEARING OF ATOMIC ROOSTER

Atomic Rooster was a very turbulent band and in only four years the released five studio albums with as many different line-ups! After two rather remarkable Heavy Prog albums, Atomic Rooster lost some of their heaviness and also some of their "progressiveness" and the result is more of a Blues Rock/Hard Rock album. There are more guitars here than on previous albums and the new vocalist has a slightly more conventional approach. Atomic Rooster sound more like Led Zeppelin here than ELP, even if they never sounded like either. The Blues, Funk and Soul influences are as strong here as anything Prog. The end result is that they have lost much of what made them so special and unique the year before.

However, the band once again comes up with some good songs and instrumentals, but they don't sound as inspired as they did on previous albums. Head In The Sky, for example, sounds very much like Lucifer's Friend's Ride The Sky (from the year before this album) only not half as good. The drumming overall makes me miss Carl Palmer.

The cover art is by none other than the great Roger Dean, but this one is very uncharacteristic of his style. But, then again, I don't think that his usual fantasy themes would have fitted this good but rather middle-of-the-road music.

Needless to say at this point, In Hearing Of is not my favourite Atomic Rooster album and is a bit disappointing after the first two albums. But this is not bad and it is recommended, but only after the first two albums.

Good, but non-essential

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