Whoever thought that the surface obsession of glam rock never met the loopy idealism of the hippie movement -- at least in the musical realm -- has obviously never heard the appropriately titled The Impossible Dream. Recorded, again, appropriately, as the Age of Aquarius was in full transition to the age of the Spiders From Mars and, later, the me decade, The Impossible Dream manages to capture that cultural DMZ in an operatic blast of pub rock-based pomp without circumstance.
Harvey is the bacchanalian ringleader, marshalling the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's considerable, flexible resources to the task at hand and providing a damn good listen in the process. Multi-part song cycles, three-minute rockers. and tomes such as "Long Hair Music" keep you, the unexpecting listener, on edge. This is one of those overlooked records, and
Harvey was one of those artists, that could easily have reached less than an arm's length and touched
T. Rex,
Queen,
the New York Dolls,
AC/DC, or Sweet, and, by extension,
Mötley Crüe,
Poison, and Guns 'n' Roses. The Impossible Dream is a key album in the discography of one of rock's little-known grand schemers. It rocks out, is pretentious, bombastic, rollicking and grand, but it's never boring. ~ Chris Handyside