RA

On Utopia's second studio album (third overall), they settled in with their permanent lineup, somewhat stripped down from the keyboard heavy band of the first two. Todd Rungren is there, of course, along with John Wilcox on drums and Roger Powell on keys. And here they have added singer/bassist Kasim Sultan.

While the album does have a hefty helping of good prog, there is also a hint of the pop direction they would veer towards in the very near future. Jealousy is a straight ahead rocker, with a single prog sounding riff at the start of each verse and chorus. Eternal Love is a fairly straight love ballad, that sounds a bit like a Queen arrangement (after they had forsaken their progressive roots).

The two purely prog songs are just great. Communion With The Sun opens with a short Bernard Hermann overture before breaking into the speldor of the song itself. Sunburst Finish (a guitar reference), closes the album with an equally proggy piece.

Magic Dragon Theater is a bit silly, but not bad, sort of a crossover prog song. Hiroshima, a heavy handed song about the use of the atomic bomb, features some wonderful screaming solos from Rundgren and Powell.

The album closes with the eighteen minute Singring And The Glass Guitar (An Electrified Fairytale). While this prog epic is very well done, the simplistic tale makes it difficult to listen to repeatedly.

On the next album, Oops, Wrong Planet, Utopia took another step away from progressive music (other than to play the older songs in concert). Too bad.