GATE TO INFINITY

I guess that any band has the right to decide in which direction they want to go. So, be warned, there is a severe change in the music you will find on this album, when compare to their previous ones.

It sounds as if "Earth And Fire" was willing to investigate world music (well ahead of time). The opening number features a weird beat mixing some disco and Oriental flavours. Hang on...The same disco-ish beat for "A Princess In Egypt" etc. The whole album is unfortunately of the same vein. It is at least as poor as ELO production in the eighties (yes, it is that bad).

The wonderful voice of Jerney is very scarce on this album. I guess that a song as "Infinity" must be considered as the only bearable song form this "work" even if the last part is a complete chaos. There is also "Dizzy Raptures" which features a good guitar solo but it is drowned with orchestrations.

Of course, 1977 was probably not the best year to try and produce a symphonic album as they were used to; but the fall to the abysses is quite abrupt, to say the least. The use of marimba ("Recognition", "A Life-Time Before") won't really being very acurate.

This album has nothing to do with being more commercial or not. "Earth & Fire" wrote great pop prog songs like "Memories", "Maybe Tomorrow" and "Only time Will Tell". These were great songs. What is to find here is extremely poor "music". Just listen to "78th Avenue". Dreadful, my friend.

The fantastic Jerney even sounds as Olivia Newton-John during the syrupous and infect "Smile". Avoid this BY ALL MEANS. If you are looking to some very bad reggae song, you'll get it here as well : "Green Park Station" probably deserves the golden medal.

Do yourself a favour : don't bother with this release (but I have no doubt about that when I see the very few reviews available for this album).

The only positive point with this release is that it is very short (as usual for "Earth & Fire". One star of course.