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Earth And Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977)

Posted By: v3122
Earth And Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977)

Earth And Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977)
EAC | Flac(Image) + Cue + Log & MP3 CBR 320Kbps
2001 | Won-Sin Music, WS 885 660-2 | ~ 236 or 92 Mb | Scans Included
Progressive Rock / Pop Rock

Four stars, with a disclaimer up front: a large chunk of this album is given to stylings that aren't really conducive to a Prog Rock discussion. My rating reflects my quality assessment regardless of the relevance to Prog. Even though it was the band's prog stylings which brought me into their camp in the first place, this is one of their albums I return to most often. "78th Avenue" and "Driftin" advanced quickly from guilty pleasures to the status of two of my favorite songs of all time.
Side one is essentially a suite of five songs, with the fifth one reprising the first, and the fourth one bringing back some themes from songs 2 and 3. Although the parts are individually very good, they don't really cohere as a suite as well as they could. Still, I love the stately tempo and novel drum beat to "Recognition?", the poppy quickness of "A Princess in Egypt", the ELP-like instrumental "The Joyous Untruth", the… the point is the music is good. A little clunky when thrown all together, but good melodies all the same.

Side two is more controversial. Five pop songs that honestly wouldn't sound out of place on an ABBA record. And I think they're all beautiful. "78th Avenue" was a single, with a disco beat and one of the best choruses I've ever heard. "Smile" is borderline iffy, a sappy ballad with pretty simplistic music, but Jerney Kaagman's guileless vocal delivery saves the day. "Green Park Station" is an impossibly syncopated quasi-reggae-funk number with clavinet, catchy as all get-out even though it's time signatures are pretty complex and hard to count along with. "Dizzy Raptures" is an orchestral-backed ballad, almost classical in its approach. It has a nifty string section in the middle, leading into an emotional Camel-like guitar solo. Nice. And then there's "Driftin'", maybe the best song on the whole album, and the most "prog" song on side two. Starts with a rippin' syncopated synth riff that reminds me of Gentle Giant (e.g. "Free Hand"), has an extended opening instrumental section with echoey guitars not unlike mid-period Eloy, and then goes into a dreamy vocal section with another one of the best choruses I've ever heard. It closes with an instrumental outro again featuring soaring guitars.

For me, this album began as an "ugh… disco", graduated to a guilty pleasure, and currently sits as an album I listen to regularly without apology. If you like late 70s pop music with interesting chord structures and arrangements, give it a try.

by HolyMoly, Progarchives

Earth And Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977):

Earth And Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977)

Tracklist:

01. Gate To Infinity (17:44)
…a) Recognition? (05:31)
…b) A Princess In Egypt (02:02)
…c) The Joyous Untruth (02:08)
…d) Infinity (05:15)
…e) A Life -Time Before (02:47)
02. 78th Avenue (03:02)
03. Smile (03:13)
04. Green Park Station (03:01)
05. Dizzy Raptures (03:19)
06. Driftin' (05:35)

Converted to Image (CUETools 2.1.4)

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 1 from 15. November 2010

EAC extraction logfile from 18. March 2012, 1:03

Earth & Fire / Gate To Infinity

Used drive : Optiarc DVD RW AD-5200A Adapter: 0 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%x" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "ALBUMARTIST=%v" -T "ALBUM ARTIST=%v" -T "COMMENT=EAC Secure Mode, Test & Copy, AccurateRip, FLAC -8" %s


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 17:44.00 | 0 | 79799
2 | 17:44.00 | 3:02.72 | 79800 | 93521
3 | 20:46.72 | 3:13.13 | 93522 | 108009
4 | 24:00.10 | 3:01.27 | 108010 | 121611
5 | 27:01.37 | 3:19.40 | 121612 | 136576
6 | 30:21.02 | 5:35.22 | 136577 | 161723


Track 1

Filename C:\mikkS\Earth & Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977) [FLAC] {2001 Remaster}\01 - Recognition-A Princess In Egypt-The Joyous Untruth-Infinity-A Life-Time Before.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 3.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 14701561
Copy CRC 14701561
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 2

Filename C:\mikkS\Earth & Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977) [FLAC] {2001 Remaster}\02 - 78th Avenue.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.12

Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 2.4 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 6648A555
Copy CRC 6648A555
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 3

Filename C:\mikkS\Earth & Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977) [FLAC] {2001 Remaster}\03 - Smile.wav

Peak level 96.0 %
Extraction speed 3.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 44145866
Copy CRC 44145866
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 4

Filename C:\mikkS\Earth & Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977) [FLAC] {2001 Remaster}\04 - Green Park Station.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:00.05

Peak level 96.4 %
Extraction speed 3.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 652D6E3E
Copy CRC 652D6E3E
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 5

Filename C:\mikkS\Earth & Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977) [FLAC] {2001 Remaster}\05 - Dizzy Raptures.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 3.5 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 6F37D688
Copy CRC 6F37D688
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 6

Filename C:\mikkS\Earth & Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977) [FLAC] {2001 Remaster}\06 - Driftin'.wav

Peak level 97.3 %
Extraction speed 3.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC B48C8620
Copy CRC B48C8620
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK


None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

No errors occurred

End of status report

==== Log checksum 181AB5A0F71445EDF72AB1412A66EB83CAFDE2DC8A738F0408E414192EF0FAAF ====

foobar2000 1.2.9 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2016-05-31 14:19:58

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Earth & Fire / Gate To Infinity
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR13 0.00 dB -15.81 dB 17:44 01-Recognition-A Princess In Egypt-The Joyous Untruth-Infinity-A Life-Time Before
DR12 0.00 dB -14.77 dB 3:03 02-78th Avenue
DR13 -0.35 dB -16.28 dB 3:13 03-Smile
DR12 -0.31 dB -15.04 dB 3:01 04-Green Park Station
DR14 0.00 dB -16.82 dB 3:20 05-Dizzy Raptures
DR13 -0.24 dB -16.25 dB 5:35 06-Driftin'
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 6
Official DR value: DR13

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 863 kbps
Codec: FLAC

[CUETools log; Date: 31.05.2016 14:19:49; Version: 2.1.4]
[CTDB TOCID: tI1snyRoHSiXDwGK4yXec7Gch1w-] found.
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
2 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
3 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
4 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
5 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
6 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
[AccurateRip ID: 000ab33d-00345d75-43086c06] found.
Track [ CRC | V2 ] Status
01 [a7444fbe|6b7b7385] (0+2/2) Accurately ripped
02 [1ff09bf5|c5fb8434] (0+2/2) Accurately ripped
03 [be9b3e36|e57b45b1] (0+2/2) Accurately ripped
04 [2f5c4704|9ffe1bdd] (0+2/2) Accurately ripped
05 [28a3d162|d93efe59] (0+2/2) Accurately ripped
06 [9563a002|ff3e8fbb] (0+2/2) Accurately ripped

Track Peak [ CRC32 ] [W/O NULL] [ LOG ]
– 100,0 [4C210365] [DC2C89BC]
01 100,0 [14701561] [05A538B0] CRC32
02 100,0 [6648A555] [A413A3E1] CRC32
03 96,0 [44145866] [99961145] CRC32
04 96,4 [652D6E3E] [6B6EC6EA] CRC32
05 100,0 [6F37D688] [EE734A9D] CRC32
06 97,3 [B48C8620] [4E5823A5] CRC32

Earth And Fire - Gate To Infinity (1977)

All thanks go to the original releaser

Earth And Fire in my Blog

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