Reviewed by Dougie Adam

Like many other albums before and after it, 'In Another Land' in its released form was very dif­ferent from how Larry intended it to be. Four songs from what was to be an 18-song, 50-minute long LP were axed ("Top Forty Survey", "Looking For The Footprints", "I Wish We'd All Been Ready", "I Dreamed That I Died"), so Larry added a hastily re-written version of Randy Stonehill's "I Love You" to lengthen the running time a little. Even in its censored form the album quickly became regarded as a classic and boasted a number of Larry's best written, best performed and best produced songs like "The Rock That Doesn't Roll", "UFO", "I Am A Servant", "Six Sixty Six", and the Jesus movement anthem "One Way". In short, this album deserved its status as one of Larry's best ever. The 25th Anniversary Edition CD contains 24 tracks: the 15 songs originally released by Word in 1976 plus nine bonus tracks -four of which appeared on Spark's 1993 CD re-issue. Of the five remaining new bonus tracks three are instrumentals featuring Dudley Moore playing classical variations on Larry's "I Don't Believe In Miracles". "Eternal Struggle" sounds like a half-finished song in progress. This leaves the magnificent "Delta Day Jam" which was recorded at the sessions even though it sounds like it has walked off 'Something New Under The Son'. My one regret is that this album has now been re-released twice on CD and so far the only one of the axed songs to make it on to CD has been the enjoyable "Looking For The Footprints". It would have been nice to hear "Top Forty Survey" and the others restored to their rightful place especially when most of them cropped up on a Phydeaux cas­sette as long ago as 1988! These quibbles aside, this is an undisputed, faultless, breathtaking masterpiece. Now go import!

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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