LIVE - RECHER THEATER

This is a very good live album from Crack The Sky, with a bunch of songs I had been waiting a long time to hear played with John Palumbo in the band. There is a fair amount of prog here. "From The Greenhouse", "Nuclear Apathy", "Why Me", "The Art Of Wondering", "Ice", "A Sea Epic", "Mind Baby" and a cover of "I Am The Walrus" all fall squarely in that category, while many other songs have some prog elements, especially in the istrumental sections.

There a too many songs (five) from the awful "White Music" album, but with the exception of "Hot Razors", they are played with an intensity, and "eyebrows" (as Zappa would have said), that makes them all much better than the original versions.

Most of the songs are extended well past the original studio versions. "Surf City" even turns into "Low Rider" (the classic tune by War) for a bit.

The performances, are not bad, if a bit sloppy. The vocals are a weak point. Palumbo's voice is not what it used to be, and the backup vocals are often a bit off-key. But this band, as it seems from it's web site announcement page, doesn't play out very frequently.

Another nice touch is the way they separated the banter between songs to their own tracks, making it easy to skip past them on CD, or just not have to transfer them to an MP3 player.

A solid 4 stars.