"After listening to the set, it's hard to see Caravan as the prog-rock band they're pigeonholed as. Often, especially on In the Land Of Grey and Pink, they are poppy. An agreeable, pastoral softness is never far. At other times they have an oblique wackiness, akin to that of Stackridge. But the thread throughout is a jazziness, common to fellow Canterbury outfit Soft Machine. Both band's roots were in the seed-bed outfit The Wilde Flowers. Indeed, the title track of If I Could do it could have been lifted from the first Soft Machine album, and The Show of Our Lives features a 1971 version of the 1968 Soft Machine B-side "Feelin' Reelin' Squealin'". With the exception of 1972's Waterloo Lily, Caravan's jazz was less tricksy than Soft Machine's. On If I Could do it's and In the Land of Grey and Pink, the two most consistent albums here, they moderate extemporisation in favour of the song".