The group's debut album. They were still a quartet at the time, without a full-time keyboard player. The material is essentially progressive folk-rock, elements of jazz and swing ("Over the Rainbow" even turns up interpolated in the arrangement of one number) juxtaposed with traditional folk songs ("The Unquiet Grave," ka "Dives and Lazarus"), works attributed to Henry VIII, and folk-style originals. Brian Gulland's and Richard Harvey's bassoon, krumhorn, and recorders are the dominant instruments. The instrumental tracks tend to overwhelm the tiny handful of vocal numbers, sung by Gulland, guitarist Graeme Taylor, and drummer David Oberle.

(by Bruce Eder, All Music Guide)

Gryphon was one of the more unusual of the folk-rock groups to come out of England in the 1970s, mostly because they didn't confine their musical genre-melding to folk-rock. Spawned at the Royal College of Music, they started out making a name for themselves in folk-rock, but their classical training and their approach to composition, recording, and performance soon took them into the much bigger field of progressive rock, and eventually had them playing gigs in front of arena-size audiences. Gryphon followed up this first release with Gryphon to Red Queen Three and Midnight Mushrumps, which are both available on the Talking Elephant label. As their reputation grew so did the sales and they became one of the foremost bands in the early to mid seventies in the cult area of medieval folk-rock. With the classical and progressive influences in their music along with the folk structure Gryphon appeal to a wide range of audience. This first album has not been available for nearly ten years and will be sought after by many fans across the musical spectrum.

(talkingelephant.co.uk)