CAPTIVES OF THE WINE DARK SEA

It seems like a good time to revisit some albums I didn't give enough of a chance to over the last few years of being so busy. With the world at a bit of a quiet standstill, perhaps my views may change on things I didn't consider earlier. The very first album I thought of was this one, which I bet would have received 3 stars from me upon release. There are reasons for the stylistic switch here, most notably a new guitar player. I remember getting far into the album and wondering where those guitars from "Circuitry" were, but as the band said, this was a "little step in a different direction". I'll go track by track here, but if you didn't give this a chance the first time, do it! 4 stars

"The Body Yearns" starts off with vocal and piano before we get to our main melody, featuring fantastic lyrics on the subject of learning and the brain's ability to process information, new and old. If Van der Graff Generator comparisons weren't on your mind already, the organ section will take care of that. The second track also reminds me of VdGG, but the later years. It's my least favorite on the album, it's also where I decided I didn't like it the first time. Track three is "S", a jittery instrumental that reminds me of Larks era King Crimson, and is also where I noticed the sound quality on this album is fantastic, certainly their best sounding album from a production standpoint. "Love Songs" and "Here There is No Soul" are surprising pop songs that aren't going to remind you of the band's previous two albums, but I like them. "The Roaring Game" starts interestingly enough, but then that guitar shows up to give us a riff! Parmenter has some great piano moments here, and we have a great guitar solo at the end. It fades out at an inopportune time though, I like where the solo is going but it's over in the middle of it all. The fina, track is the best one by far, I don't want to go section by section but we have a quirky bluesy riff that gets slowed down to be more Discipline style, Canterbury style vocals over the only mellotron on the album, and it just keeps giving. This is an all time Discipline track and a great ending.