The rugged “Over the Hill”, with a well laid out string arrangement, is another highlight. Its structure, alternating quieter moments with faster passages, stitched by the vocal full of personality of the leader of Ten Years After, transformed it not only in the biggest hit of the band’s career, but also in one of the most crystalline and brilliant records of that beginning of decade, where heroes were dead and the future was looking hazier every day. “I´d Love to Change the World” is as follows. The beautiful and spatial “Here They Come” shows all the lyricism of Alvin Lee. The disc opens with “One of These Days”, a hard blues that begins with a traditional structure that leads to a long instrumental section in its core, where the influence of the psychedelic groups from the turn of the sixties and early seventies is perceived. This hitherto unprecedented facet, where the guitarist is as brilliant as on his previous path, contrasts with the musician’s iconographic figure at the Woodstock Festival (1969), igniting a crowd in hallucinogenic ecstasy with his impish Gibson. Filled with songs with acoustic bases, they would have inspired Alvin to follow the same path in his new compositions.
This change was probably due to the great success achieved by the first Led Zeppelin albums. Most of his ten tracks are built not on guitar riffs, but on fingerings from Alvin Lee’s instrument. Space in Time, with its upbeat songs and full of sticky choruses, is like a last breath before the final journey through the darkest alleys of the seventies. The overflow and innocence of flower power were gone, as if predicting a dip in more dark and delicate times. Extremely cohesive and intertwined, the band managed to synthesize the transformations of the period in which the album was recorded.
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