CAPTAIN BEYOND

What I love the most about this one is that it is completely forgotten,and people just don't realize how incredible it really is.Magical music,I mean.A step foward towards the Deep Purple hard rocking direction,with bits of early Pink Floyd space psychedelia.It could have worked out terribly wrong,but the end result is an uncanny masterpiece.It's timeless brilliance,unfornutaley,was too much for the ignorance of Capricorn Records,who completely ignored the band after the album's release,and so Captain Beyond went downhill.Their debut,however,is suspended above time....

I'm not sure how much progressive rock there is.If the therm refers to experimental rock msuic,then there's certainly a lot.Exotic arrangements are not found,though.No flutes,grand piano,mellotron or even keyboards.There's simply no place for those in the album,as it is generally heavy and grooving,with very brief quieter passages.Ant though it contains 13 tracks,these are highly connected,making it work as 5 songs:2 individual pieces and 3 suites.But even those are hard to be separated,as the album is consisted by a very unique and dependent sounding,where nothing,I repeat,NOTHING can be separated.

The opening Dancing Madly Backwards suite already presents the constant changing time sigantures and space-sounding,with great guitar work and 'far-off' vocals from the ex-Deep Purple Rod Evans.

My personal favourite would be the one song formed by I Can't feel Nothing,As the Moon Speaks(To the Waves of the Sea)and Astral Lady,but everything else is just fantastic.Just experiment hearing these album alone in the dark.Absolutely unique,amazing sounding.

Everything you'd expect from a 70's hard rock band is here,but the music made here sounds fresh.Though it wasn't tagged this way back in the day,the band is a 'supergroup':Drummer Bobby Caldwell from Johnny Winter Band,Rhino and Lee Dorman from Iron Butterfly and Rod Evans from Deep Purple.All playing as if it was the last performances of their lives.

There's really not much more to be said about it,as putting these simple words down was already a challenge.You just gotta listen to understand it.People just don't do this anymore...I hadn't heard something as refreshing as this since I laid my hands on In The Court of the Crimson King.

Highly recommended.