Greatest Show on Earth's second album demonstrates a musical maturity towards songwriting, but in retrospect, I like both albums about the same regardless. The blues element is brought forward, whereas the pop oriented horn charts are left behind. One step forward, one step back. 'Magic Woman Touch', the album's great hope for a single sees the band heading towards folk rock territory with mixed results. And closer 'Tell the Story' is probably their worst composition to date. Clear highlight for me is the multi-part jazz rock suite 'Love Magnet' which is GSOE's shining moment of their entire career - and a direction I would have liked to see them pursue further. Alas it was not to be, and their two-album-one-year-run was over.
Ownership: LP: 1970 Harvest. Gatefold textured cover. Online acquisition (2018). I started with the Esoteric CD, which made up the original review above (2015). There's only one unique bonus track, taken from a 45. It's pretty good, but not enough to hold onto the CD for. I captured the liner notes first though before parting ways.
2007; 10/2/15 (new entry); 9/11/18 (LP acquisition); 2/17/23
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