It’s best to regard 1971’s Nursery Cryme as a crucial pivot point, planting the seeds for the following year’s Foxtrot. The band’s third LP, Cryme marks the recorded debut of both Hackett and Collins — and the upgrade in musicianship is apparent straight away. “The Musical Box” (co-written by original guitarist Anthony Phillips before his departure) opens the album with 10 minutes of lunatic genius, building from feathery 12-strings to a propulsive, proggy climax; both “The Fountain Of Salmacis” and “The Return Of The Giant Hogweed” mine similarly expansive territory, pointing toward the long-form majesty of Foxtrot’s “Supper’s Ready.” Elsewhere, though, the songs are either tentative (Banks’ by-numbers ballad “Seven Stones”) or quirky for the sake of quirk (“Harold The Barrel”). Worst of all, the muted production keeps even the best songs at arm’s length.