RA

Todd's Utopia is down to a quartet but he's still trying to make a contribution to the prog world (as opposed to any and all future releases under the Utopia guise). When this came out, my roommate and I played this one to death, and we had the privilege of seeing the band on the following album (Oops! Wrong Planet") tour when they recreated the opening and final songs of this album in the full color splendor of Pyramid. The progression of Todd on display with this album is all in the engineering effects he's experimenting with at this time.

1. "Overture: Mountain Top And Sunrise/Communion With The Sun" (7:15) (8.5/10) 2. "Magic Dragon Theatre" (3:28) sounds like a more-earthly follow up to "Initiation"'s "Treatise on Cosmic Fire" with some interesting radio theatricity. Not bad; not great. (8/10) 3. "Jealousy" (4:43) an attempt at some snarky metallic music a la "Todd"'s "Heavy Metal Kids." (6/10) 4. "Eternal Love (4:51) a piano-based love song from the pop-tune master. Unfortunately this one has no great hooks or dynamic shifts to suck the listener in (as well as some flawed vocals). (7/10) 5. "Sunburst Finish (7:38) another attempt at Zappa? Todd lets the others have share the vocal leads. Unfotunately, the chorus is horrendous. (5/10) 6. "Hiroshima (7:16) a favorite Utopia song for to this day--though the chorus lyric can't help but bring smiles due to the opportunities for wordplay. Still, the song had some power to it. Unfortunately, it does not stand up very well over time. The best part is the theatric radioplay interlude after the second chorus followed by some awesome synthesizer and guitar soli. (8/10) 7. "Singring And The Glass Guitar (an Electrified Fairy Tale) (18:24) the true epic as it tries to tell a fabulous story, the music stands up okay (though it could well have been an inspiration for SPINAL TAP), but the story doesn't (never really did). (8/10)

More than a lot of Todd's albums, this one suffers terribly from age. Three stars; maybe two.