A TAB IN THE OCEAN

Nektar's '72 offering showed a very good band doing very good music that yielded some very good things. It also sounds dreadful and though not necessarily a deal-breaker with earlier progressive rock, A Tab in the Ocean's production is simply grating, and that's a real shame. But I'm a fair man and somewhere behind the veil of pockmarks, inexplicable surface noise and a mix apparently mastered by a deaf man, there is a very reasonable symphonic spacerock record.

Allan Freeman's organ has a full, churchly quality that holds things together, the band adding accents and flourishes where appropriate. Derek Moore's nimble bass and his & Roye Albrighton's singing is fine and the fifteen minute title has more than a few exciting peaks. But I am reminded of the 18th century French painters vying for the Prix de Rome who, though highly talented all, weren't quite ready yet. 'Desolation Valley/Waves' is another bumpy road with sporadic flashes of greatness and Pink colorations, leads into not half-bad atomic rocker 'Crying in the Dark' and finishes with rather good vocal/grinder 'King of Twilight' in an odd meeting of Ennio Morricone and cheesy vocal-oriented rock.

At a total of thirty-six minutes and considering this group's other, better releases, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend the typical progster drop more than about ten bucks on this puppy. And though the 2011 It'sAboutMusic reissue includes a second disc of early unreleased material, it does not sweeten this somewhat lackluster pot.