Review Summary: The Day The Earth Caught Fire is a great demonstration of the talent of this underrated band. Technically it's almost perfect with very good riffs and sometimes bone-chilling solos.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire was released in 1979 and it is by far the best record ever composed by this English rock band. I usually say that you need a timing, not only to release an album, but also to start a band.
City Boy formed in the 70's, in an era where
Black Sabbath,
Pink Floyd,
Rush or
Deep Purple were dominating the scene. This English natives in spite of having one or two hits, are unknown to the general public of rock fans.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire is a great example of that bad-timing, it's an impressive progressive rock album with some "poppish" tunes here and there. It mixes superbly elements of progressive, melodic, pop and rock music with impressive vocals and heavy guitar compositions.
Like I said above in business timing is everything and this album wasn't at all a commercial success. At the time
Rush just finished releasing the classic
Hemispheres in 1978;
Rainbow released,
Down To Earth, in 1979;
Pink Floyd released
The Wall, the epic studio album, in 1979; and that wasn't all of the classic albums released in 1978 and 1979 that stopped
City Boy from reaching worldwide success. They were great but not that great, they weren't able to overcome the odds and the success was just plain moderate. It seems this album never had the chance to "jump over the wall" of success, mainly due to the domination of other bands.
The Day The Earth Caught Fire is a great demonstration of the talent of this underrated band. Technically it's almost perfect with very good riffs and sometimes bone-chilling solos. The vocals are a bit more aggressive than previous albums, but still they were able to keep the melodic and pop side of the band, never forgetting their roots. Like I said above this was the most progressive record ever devised by the band, it was in
The Day The Earth Caught Fire that the band composed their epic track of over twelve minutes, "Ambition". The band's performance was really great, always consistent with no flaws. With this album they gave a new direction to live shows with a more heavy and progressive sound. It's a solid album for every fan of the band but also for those who aren't and never were fans of this group. This is my favorite album of
City Boy, it is much more rock oriented with a strong progressive part, but never forgetting the melodic/pop parts filled with great and inspirational lyrics. The album's production is also worthy of admiration mainly in the longer tracks. Highlights: "The Day the Earth Caught Fire", "It's Only The End Of The World", "Modern Love Affair", "Up in the Eighties" or "Ambition". For me this record is almost perfect giving it a solid 4,5/5.
I'm not saying
City Boy is better than any of the bands above but definitely had the potential to be better than they were. We can see that in this album, the group had the ability of composing solid progressive tracks while mantaining high level of melody in its tracks. It's an essential album for any fan of rock and a great way to get in touch with some of the more obscure bands in the greatest decade in music history...70's.
