Review: The Sky’s The Limit—Crack the Sky’s New Organic Offering

Crack the Sky
From the Wood
Aluminum Cat Recordings
Four Out of Five Stars

While many of the folks who were familiar with them early on might consider Crack the Sky a relic of an earlier era, especially given their initial prog posture, credit ought to be given to them for soldiering on, even as they draw close to their 50th anniversary. While they have plenty of history to fall back on —their 1975 debut was widely heralded as one of that year’s most stunning debuts—From The Wood finds them reinventing themselves in a more stripped-down setting, one that eschews the arched early arrangements for a sound that relies on acoustic instrumentation in the form of acoustic guitars, piano, dobro, ukulele, banjo, accordion, mandolin, bass, toy piano, djembe, and drums. It’s a decided change in tact, but one that allows for more immediacy in the process. 

That’s not to say that the songs are any less sturdy or assured. Indeed, the majority of these songs still rock reliably the anthemic—“Get High,” the expressly urgent “Lady in the Lake,” an uncommonly jubilant “Going Downtown,” the rollicking “Don’t Feed the Tigers,” and the ironically insistent “Fun In Isolation” chief among them. So too, certain, songs such as “Outside Of Me” in particular, convey a seductive sensuality that’s all but irresistible.

The band’s constant mainstay, John Palumbo, continues to shape the band’s sound, with guitarists and multi-instrumentalists  Rick Witkowski and Bobby Hird, keyboardist Glenn Workman, bassist Dave DeMarco, and drummer and backup vocalist Joe D’Amico adding their input as well. The musicians’ combined input speaks to the band’s energy and endurance. There’s not a single song that fails to find a tasteful treatment.

While the accessibility element is evident throughout, a certain amount of social commentary is apparent as well. That makes for a bold array of topics, with subjects that touch on the sense of isolation spawned by the pandemic, today’s overwrought political posturing, the prevailing skepticism that seems so prominent in today’s society, and, perhaps most significantly, the need to stand up for Ukraine. So too, the overall mood veers from the stoic optimism of “Circle Of Life” to the decidedly pessimistic perspective shared with “My New World.” Taken in tandem, From the Wood is, as its name implies, purely poetic.

Photo by Rei Peri