BEFORE BECAME AFTER

The follow up to Early releases only happened 30 years later when BBA came out in April 2004. This CD just grows on you. Alt.More Worlds than Known (Which you can hear if you go to WWW.Protokaw.com) is a great start to this journey which includes 4 songs written in the early 70's, 5 recently written songs and 1 cover tune. It is a cross between a prog and straight ahead blues based rock song but with nice changes and solos with varied instrumentation. (Oh there are two editions to this the one you see listed above and the expanded limited edition which includes 2 more songs. The first is Words of Honor and the second is the Lawyer song Greenburg, Glickstien, Charles ,David ,Smith and Jones)

The two best prog representative songs are Leaven and Theophany followed closely by Quantum Leapfrog, Gloriana and Axolotl. Heavenly Man while not quite prog has an interesting vocal line and a great organ solo and a very dramatic ending. Words of Honor is reminiscent of later Kansas songs but still has a great flute and guitar solo. The other three songs are, the only reason I give this CD a four not a five, are average pop/rocks songs. However when taken into account these musicians have not recorded together and only one has been a professional musician it is quite amazing to hear.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes a little jazz in their prog, someone who likes a little avant-garde in their prog and anyone who is a fan of the underdog. There are influences of King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Procol Harem, Early Pink Floyd and Vander Graffe Generator but not blatantly so. This band is playing Nearfest this year (2005) and I think you may hear more about them in the future. They are refreshing, very refreshing.