...SOUNDS LIKE THIS

One thing you can not criticize NEKTAR for and that is making albums that sound the same. "Sounds Like This" was the result of a 2 day live in studio recording experiment without great gobs of editing and studio trickery.. They were pretty much just captured live and raw. The end result is still a very much psychedelic NEKTAR rock sound with a certain raw vibe throughout. The big problem with "Sounds Like This" was that it was sandwitched between "Tab In The Ocean" and "Remember The Future" and has forever been sadly greyed out by many in perspective. Let me set the record straight and tell you this is one amazing album. I love the big extended jams that these guys get into and at times actually reminds me more of DEEP PURPLE than NEKTAR. Many tracks rock out and although do not carry the concept charisma of their legendary recordings, does ignite all candles for this music lover. Roye Albrighton's guitar work is perhaps his best on any album as he demonstrates his incredible dexterity and skill with some great solos. This might be really NEKTAR's most rock oriented album but still carries lots of progressive tendencies. This album was originally released as a double vinyl album and clocks in at about 75 mins and really does not stop from start to finish. Overall a superb album.

The approach Nektar took on their third album, 'Sounds Like This', was to go into the studio and lay it all down live, with only basic ideas pre-written. Lots of the album is filled with extended jams and improvs, many of the songs more basic in structure than anything found on the albums that surround it. This kind of thing isn't their strong point apparently, because 'Sounds Like This' is overlong, filled with superfluous material and some downright boring passages.

The material moves in a harder, more visceral vein (sometimes reminding of Uriah Heep and early Lucifer's Friend) than the spacier, proggier feel of their other '70s albums. It begins meekly with the lazy "Good Day" and the downright useless blues of "What Ya Gonna Do?" marring the listening experience early. But "New Day Dawning" is more like the Nektar we've come to expect. Thankfully, the middle of album provides some solid workouts, with both "Cast Your Fate" and "A Day In The Life Of A Preacher" showing this rawer, heavier Nektar married to the more cosmic, sublime Nektar we're used to. These two songs emerge as classics of the Nektar catalog, leaving the rest of the album behind in their wake. Final tracks "Wings" and "Odyssee" are enjoyable, if not amazing, though "Odyssee" dips into way too many hard rock jam cliches, again showing that excess improvisation is not a Nektar strong point. It's no wonder 'Sounds Like This' is rarely talked about (and rarely reviewed on this site) compared to other, much better works like 'Journey To The Centre Of The Eye', 'A Tab In The Ocean' and 'Remember The Future'. It feels a little underbaked, but was maybe a necessary side-step so they could re-charge for what they do best. It would've made a great single album, but unfortunately they choose to release way too much and ended up damaging the listenability of the album and their otherwise impressive run of '70s albums.

"Dieter remixed side four before breakfast ..... "

..... so say the excellent liner notes for the Dream Nebula remastered edition of Sounds Like This which clearly demonstrates how different it all was 30 years ago. Whilst recording the classic A Tab In The Ocean the boys in the band had the notion of tidying up a lot of unrecorded loose ends from their past. Two studio sessions were subsequently undertaken with the bulk of the material originally released in 1973 coming from the later session in February 1973. Unusually, the decision was taken to record live-in-the-studio with no overdubs, resulting in a very raw take-it-or-leave-it production.

Those expecting Nektar's regular brand of muscular Symphonic Prog might get a severe shock, as this album is unremittingly pure heavy rock: high quality, inventive and exciting, but stripped of Prog fancies. Indeed, Albrighton has here become an axe god and the band have morphed into Uriah Heep, giving a flavour of their concert sound - loud, proud and very energetic, the sound of a tight outfit who know and understand each other well and are prepared to stretch themselves on long improvisational jams. The guys had fun with this album, their performances exuberant yet assured, creating what must have been an electric atmosphere in that Cologne studio judging by the noises-off.

Material ranges from classy tuneful rock ballads, a couple of more typically AOR style mid-tempo rockers and surprisingly some southern boogie. The rest is hard rocking all the way - oh, and aided by a spot of Norwegian Wood! One of these, the 12½ minute 1-2-3-4, becomes my favourite track once the unfortunate song part is dispensed with: the energy levels get almost too hard to bear as they crank it up higher and ever higher. Darker and slower, A Day In The Life Of A Preacher is another cracker, probably the nearest they come on this album to anything progressive.

The first CD of Dream Nebula's latest 2CD set contains the entire original album as released in 1973, expertly remastered as always and excellently packaged. The second disc contains previously unreleased material left over from the original recording sessions from October 1972. Generally, this earlier material is inferior, justifying the band's decision to re-record it. Only some tracks are duplicated while others were redeveloped.

At judgement time, you need to be a fan of heavy rock to get the most out of this. I always felt it was too long and overpowering to be heard in one go, even more so now with 2½ hours on the latest issue! In Prog terms, this really is only for fans of the band, but it gains a point for sheer quality.

Let's have some fun

Nektar's third album was a bold statement, being a double LP. It is however, the sound of a band letting their hair down, and having fun. Don't look for intricate structures here, the tracks may be reasonably long, but that is because they are extended jams based around straight forward themes. "Sounds like this" was recorded live in the studio over three days in February 1973. The psychedelic influences of the first two albums are gently but firmly pushed aside, to be replaced by a much harder Hammond organ driven edge, more in the vein of URIAH HEEP or DEEP PURPLE.

Take "What ya gonna do" for example. This basic rock and roll/blues number could have been recorded by any number of bands during some down time in the studio. It's great fun and will get your foot tapping without a doubt, but it is not Nektar as we know them. This fun is also apparent on "New day dawning" where, for no obvious reason, midway through the song we veer straight into the Beatles "Norwegian wood".

"1-2-3-4" is a rambling 13 minute jam which features extended organ and guitar improvisations. Likewise, "A day in the life of a preacher" starts out as a couple of simple verses, then quickly moves into a lengthy, undistinguished jam. The closing track "Odyssee" doesn't even bother with the vocal preamble, going straight into an organ based, funkier session.

More time has clearly been spent on some compositions that on others. Both "Do you believe in magic" and "Cast your fate" are lyrically mature, and feature more defined melodies. The brief "Wings" too is a soft ballad with pop sensibilities.

Nowadays, the album fits comfortably onto the single disc of a CD. When it was released though, a double LP usually indicated that a band had been working on a major project which could not be fully expressed within the confines of one LP. With "Sounds like this", that is clearly not the case and the band are simply indulging themselves. There's no denying that the music here is generally enjoyable and proficiently performed, but as a whole, the album falls short of the standards set by the band's other albums of the period.

I CAN LIVE WITHOUT THIS ALBUM!

This is the third release from NEKTAR; i just wish this double LP never saw the light. Are you wondering what the meaning os self- indulgent is? It's all here. I guess the 4 NEKTAR members were trying to have some fun, maybe they had, but it doesn't mean that the listeners would enjoy the same way. And they didn't as this album did poorly on the market.

SOUNDS LIKE THIS is a ''live in the studio'' album. Everybody plugged in and let's play. First you will notice than the hard rock edge already present on TAB IN THE OCEAN is indeed accentuated here. A lot of strong guitar riffs, a lot of Hammond soloing make sound the music played on this album closer to SPACE TRUCKIN ( MADE IN JAPAN live jam version) meeting GRATEFUL DEAD live VOL1 (the one from 1969) with a zest of THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME annoying noodling.

You have short songs, quite on the rock side, even with some blues tendency, and guess what you can hear funk influences; there is hardly anything PROGRESSIVE on this album, the jams are endless noodling going nowhere with no head and tails. The same band that produced the magnificent space rock JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EYE 2 years earlier.

There is not one track that i can recommend; everything here i inferior to what they released before or after.I bought not a long time ago some of NEKTAR remastered CDS, (the first CDS releases from the 90s were plain horrible: to avoid at all cost, even cheap) but i passed on this one. Usually, i am kind of a completionist, but not here.

This album is the perfect example of the downside of the productive creative era from the beginning of the 70s. Sometimes , excellent musicians lost focus and did whatever they want indulging in pointless music (or lack of)

I am hesitating between one star and 2 stars, but as it's not even prog, will be only one

ONE STAR

From great psychedelia in their first release, "Nektar" goes in all the directions on this one : hard-rock with "Good Day", Beatles- oriented with "New Day Dawning" (coevering partially a Beatles song), blues / boogie with "What Ya Gonna Do", a bit of Hendrix / Purple during "1-2-3-4" of which the organ part seriously reminds me of Jon Lord of course. The long guitar solo is brilliant and fully representative of this era.

A song like "Do You Believe In Magic" virtually goes nowhere and is globally pretty boring. "Cast After This" almost sounds good after such a P.I.T.A.

"A Day in the Life of a Preacher" almost sounds as country-rock in its initial phase. It turns out again to be a heavy one. Little inspiration, really. All these jams sound alike. Of course, I have never been into jam oriented music (even Purple could hardly enjoy me on these territories). Pooooooooor. There are tons of bands who could play this sort of music. Less known and more performant. Thirteen minutes of this treatment is a bad experience, believe me !

One of fave of this album is "Wings" : a short rock ballad, full of emotion and with a very nice melody. But it lasts for less than four minutes...

The long and final number "Odyssee" start jazzy, turns bluesy then hard-rock. It features a good drum solo (just over one minute). Not a great programme, I'm afraid...Some funky mood during the second part won't raise my level of interest.

This album has nothing in particular that could be of interest to a prog fan. And even a hard-rock one like I am can't find lots of positive points in here. Two stars is the maximum rating I can think of for this release.

If previous Nektar album was a great example of psychedelic heavy rock from 70-s, almost masterpiece, this third their album is different.

First of all, it is recorded live in studio during two days, and almost without prepared material. What means, it is long (double LP) studio based live jam. And it feels.

Songs are much more simple and heavy. In fact, in too many places music there sounds as played by Uriah Heep or Deep Purple. With heavy keyboards passages, plenty of guitar soloing and long rockin' compositions.

I don't think all these changes are bad, but just it's a bit different music. Instead of refined and quite complex psychedelic brew you have there quite simplistic, but heavy , often blues-rock based jamming. To be honest, musicians do their job there very well, so all album is far from boring. And possibly the problem is you just expected more from such great band as Nektar was.

In all, better than average album, but just not for psychedelic rock lovers. Heavy rock fans will be possibly very happy with it, though.

Something like 3+.

Not Psychedelic as previous albums, but I don't care much about that, as I'm aware that bands switches genres quite often (faster than Marty changes socks) and rating this as Psyche album would be unfair.

Some neat Heavy stuff going on here and even it's 1973, it sounds like earlier record, let's say pretty elaborate album for late 60s with added Prog elements (not progressive) of early 70s. In this case, I'm probably fortunate that I don't know their other albums so well, as I can enjoy this huge album. I like good jamming, some Prog-related bands made it here (Phish, Umphrey) because they combined it with certain Prog elements and if this is the path "Nektar" (yes, it sounds German, but this record at all doesn't seem german-like to me too much, but I suppose that others does).

The important thing is that in general, this does the trick. It fits together and it leaves fine emotional trace of certain amount of headbangs, some parts where their home genre shines (1-2-3-4's middle part)

By the way, when looking on line-up, Mick Brockett did "lights" ? Really ? Oh my, that's crazy, really crazy.

4(-), because even not so Prog, this is fun, interesting and in general pleasant enough (in delicate Heavy&Hard way) to give it that much (or low?)

Nektar had already released two distinctive albums, the space rock / psychedelic concept piece "Journey to the Centre of the Eye" and the heavy psych / proto-metal / prog near masterpiece "A Tab in the Ocean". Their success in their adopted country of Germany was growing and opportunity came for them to reach out to an audience in their native land of Great Britain. With material already in place for what was to become their breakthrough album in the U.S., "Remember the Future", Nektar went ahead to record this intermediate album in order to first launch themselves into the U.K.

The plan was simple: record live in the studio and release a double disc of material. And this is exactly what they did, playing in studio as they would live. However, in the course of their creative growth, this album comes across as a giant leap backwards. The songs barely give any hint of what the band was capable of with regards to carefully crafted longer compositions or short but tightly-connected conceptually related songs. This album was more like a hail to the good old days of fun guitar rock.

Perhaps Nektar saw this as their last chance to record some of their "old" favourites that had never been committed to vinyl. Songs like "New Day Dawning", "Do You Believe in Magic", and "Good Day" had already been recorded on what were called "The Boston Tapes" back in 1970 (later to be released on the bonus disc for "Remember the Future" on the Purple Pyramid reissue of that album). Back in those days, the band was pretty much just another guitar-based rock band with an organist in the line-up. The songs on this, their third album, are more or less in the same mould, despite three tracks being over 12 minutes and two of those coming in three parts.

With this in mind, you can expect exactly what you'll get: a double disc of rock songs with some good melodies and some parts showcasing the guitarist's abilities, some enjoyable heavy guitar workouts and some rather lengthy jam sessions. This album resembles "A Tab in the Ocean" only in sound (Nektar "Sounds Like This" is an appropriate title in so far as "sound" is concerned); the guitar and keyboard settings are more or less the same, though very different on "Remember the Future".

This is not to say that a fan of early 70's heavy guitar / organ rock will be disappointed. In particular, "A Day in the Life of a Preacher" and "Oddysee" exhibit some heavy rock jamming that fits in with contemporary Uriah Heep and Deep Purple. "Cast Your Fate" and "Do You Believe in Magic" also have their heavy moments. But for the most part you have to think of these longer tracks as four to five-minute songs filled with a live jam session. Notably, "1-2- 3-4" is just a short song, which can be heard as just that on the radio edit on the bonus disc, but gets an additional 10 minutes of jamming, featuring solos on guitar, organ, and bass. Yes, there's a drum solo coming, too; it's on "Oddysee".

The recording quality of the album suffers a little in my opinion because of the live-in-studio approach (that's "live" as in rhymes with "five"). The band wanted to capture that live feeling and I think they did and rather well at times, but I am not much of a fan of live recordings. This album is not mixed cleanly. There are no overdubs or efforts to make it sound like a studio recording. It's live with no audience except whoever was working in the studio at the time. The Purple Pyramid bonus disc includes a studio radio version of "Do You Believe in Magic" and for me, this version is much more enjoyable, even though the album version includes a heavy guitar solo section completely separate from the actual song. The sound of the radio version is polished and cleaner compared to the live-in-studio version.

This album is said to be Nektar's heaviest and I have to agree based on what I have heard ("Tab", "Remember" and "Recycled"). I think it's because of the energy they put into their live set and the extended guitar workouts that they sound heavier than usual on this particular album. What fails to impress me, however, is that these songs are often allowed to carry on as a live performance where, if you are present at the show, it might be enjoyable to listen to an extra few minutes of instrumental exercises. But as a studio band, Nektar are very capable of putting together cohesive, multi-part songs that don't feel unnecessarily extended and even short but concise numbers when it suits the continuity of the album. I personally would have appreciated more a single disc of well-recorded and mixed studio tracks, selecting the best of the lot represented here. But that's just me.

"Good" is really a matter of opinion. I think it's good enough but not worth the three-star interpretation of "Good". But it is better than two stars. I give it a weak 3.

I sure run across a lot of underrated albums. The first Hawkwind album, Genesis' Trespass, Le Orme's Collage, Passport's Ataraxia (Sky Blue), Porcupine Tree's ...On the Sunday of Life, Yes' A Time & a Word and Drama, PFM's Chocolate Kings, and I'm sure I could name a few more, but these albums really don't get much respect. A few I can't understand why like Yes' A Time and a Word, for example (many complain about the orchestration, but that never bothered me, although while I enjoy Drama, many just dislike the fact Jon Anderson isn't present). Others might be because there's a few dodgy tracks (bands that have to throw in a '50s-style rock and roll boogie number or a reggae cut that's totally inappropriate to what they do) on them but there some real gems in them that really stand out, or they change musical directions, but made a valid album despite alienating many fans, and then there's some that might not like the production quality or approach (like Le Orme's Collage).

Nektar's ...Sounds Like This is another one of those underrated albums. They could have expanded on what they did on A Tab in the Ocean, instead they decided to do a live in the studio album, with minimal editing, so obviously giving it a feel of a live album, you expect to hear an audience cheer at the end of every song, that's not what you get. Many felt this was a serious backstep for the band. It's at times the band was going closer to heavy metal in the Deep Purple or Uriah Heep vein than the earlier stuff. It's probably this album the reason why they're included in Metal Music Archives. It obviously has a raw sound, and in fact has a rather intense feel, which I do like. I have to say the only song I can do without is "What Ya Gonna Do?" sounds like a generic boogie rocker of the kind Nektar usually stays away. I still hear a bit of that Tab in the Ocean sound surface. I noticed Allan "Taff" Freeman's role in the band was reduced here so you hear less of his organ playing. There are some great material like "Cast Your Fate", "Do You Believe in Magic", and "A Day in the Life of a Preacher". "New Day Dawning" also includes an excerpt of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood". I can't believe this album was recorded and released the same year as the much more popular Remember the Future (released later that year). Remember the Future had a much more polished, professional approach, and a more proggy approach, that gave the band unexpected American success (once the album was released in the States in 1974 on Passport). I was skeptical about ...Sounds Like This, so I didn't buy a copy until now, when I found a used copy at a Eugene CD/video game store (that also sold vinyl), this was a UK LP copy on United Artists, and it was cheap, so I had nothing to lose. The album isn't perfect, some of the jams go on longer than they need to (this isn't the Grateful Dead, but then even a lot of the jams the Dead did seem to go on much longer than they need to), and it's might be less prog than what they did before (A Tab in the Ocean or Journey to the Centre of the Eye) or less polished and sophisticated than Remember the Future, but then Nektar didn't seem to repeat what they did anyways. Still I find this album quite enjoyable.

Deliberately made in a rougher, looser style in a bid to translate their live energy to the studio, Nektar's ...Sounds Like This may be jarring if you're coming to it from their more symphonically-inclined works like Remember the Future or Recycled, but makes perfect sense as a continuation of their early space rock/heavy psych-influenced sound. It's a style which may have felt a little dated in 1973 - an era when prog was largely pushing past its roots in psychedelic rock - but I think it's a perfectly solid entry in Nektar's discography and doesn't to be overlooked to the extent that it is.

More of an impromptu recording than a proper album, NEKTAR followed up its first two albums with a radical new approach. While the first two albums excelled in crafting psychedelic space rock with heavier prog workouts, the band's third release ?SOUNDS LIKE THIS was created to showcase a more stripped down approach that focused on simple compositions that were designed for lengthy jamming sessions. The idea was to capture the spirit of NEKTAR's live shows without the unpredictable results of recording a live album's worth of material. Basically recorded live in the studio in front of a small group of friends, the material was mined from songs that were written long before the album's recording and had been played live for a few years.

This must've been a real shock for NEKTAR fans during the day after two stellar prog albums that focused on tight-knit lengthy composiitons with alternating trippy psychedelic space rock along with heavier prog rock complexities. Sort of going the way of Uriah Heep that delivered a few proggy albums before jumping on the hard rock bandwagon, ?SOUNDS LIKE THIS delivered fairly basic hard rock songs that focused on extended improvisational jams. The album was recorded live in a single session and to be honest it really sounds like it. Sounding more like an early garage rock band of the 60s that started to dabble in the world of proto-prog, this third release was originally a double album which featured nine tracks at nearly 75 minutes playing time.

The album starts out poorly with "Good Day" and immediately establishes the band as a rather dumbed down version of itself with repetitive guitar riffing with some funk styles added and the occasional guitar soloing. Sounds of folk, country rock and the occasional space rock finds their way into the overall mix. After two albums of extremely brilliant instrumental interplay that didn't miss a beat, all of a sudden NEKTAR sounded sloppy as if they all woke up one morning and went right to the studio to record this album. The overall impression it leaves me is that if this was what they sounded like live then i would've felt ripped off. The album is filled with moments that just rub me the wrong way. An ill-fated attempt of throwing The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" into the opening track just sounds plain awful. The track "1-2-3-4" sounds like a stupid nursery rhyme set to hard rock only with the skillset of a grade school troupe.

By the time the second album begins it gets even worse with tracks like "A Day In The Life Of A Preacher" sounding like a harder rock version of The Grateful Dead. Roy Albrighton's vocals which sounded crisp and in top form on the brilliant earlier albums suddenly sounds strained and tired. And this is for the album's long and tiring entirety. If the band's intent was to sound as awful as they possibly could then they truly succeeded as to my ears i find little redeeming value on ?SOUNDS LIKE THIS. While the 70s delivered some of the best hard rock ever to have been recorded, the songs on this album just sound plain boring and lack any characteristics that make them memorable or even tolerable. This was a decisive album upon its release and remains so to this day with yours truly falling on the side that finds this album rather torturous.

I listen to this from time to time just to see if there's something i've been missing but every time i give this album a chance to sink in in some positive way, i'm literally bored to tears and find this to be one of the most non-innovative and generic hard rock albums of the entire 70s. None of the musicians excel in any particular way and the entire album feels like its forced. Add to that the production and mixing resulted in a heavier than expected sound effect and it all sounds so unstructured that there's really no backbone to the album. A single album's worth would've been bad enough but to extend this to four sides of a vinyl LP adds insult to injury. At least bands like Uriah Heep crafted beautiful hard rock albums after their early prog years but that's not the case with NEKTAR. To my ears this sounds like a long lost NEKTAR album that was recorded way before the brilliant debut "Journey To The Centre Of The Eye" almost like a demo. Ironically the album cover is my favorite of their entire canon but i only get a 1 star enjoyment value out of this. For fans and collectors only. I keep this in my collection really for the eye candy album cover art alone.

While Nektar's two early works had shown a clear inclination towards psychedelia and spacey instrumentation, it is also true that Roye Albrighton's distorted and generally raspy guitars brought with them a few decibels above the standard progressive movement, giving the band a very definite personality of their own.

And with "...Sounds Like This", their third album (1973), the English band based in Germany seems to want to exorcise all that rock energy in an extensive work starring Albrighton's haemorrhagic and rocky guitar dissertations, with Allan Freeman's keyboards remaining more as an important support with shy solo participations, as well as those of Derek Moore's solvent bass, and therefore moving away from the structured and lysergic style more identifiable of Nektar.

In the raw and rudimentary approach of the album, initially recorded live and then retouched and reformulated in the studio, lies its greatest attraction, with pieces marked by instrumental improvisation, and where both the arpeggiated and boxed guitar opening of "Good Day" and its persistent choral refrain, the wink to the beatlenian "Norwegian Wood" in the emotional "New Day Dawning", the bluesy "What Ya Gonna Do? "and Albrighton's vocal and guitar counterpoint stand out, as do the extended lucubrations of the funky "1-2-3-4" with the very active Ron Howden on drums accompanying the once again unleashed Albrighton, the thunderous and unbridled distorted guitar solo on the demanding "Do You Believe in Magic?", and the also lengthy and bluesy "Odyssey", with Howden's drum solo included, and a final section of increasing intensity, to bring the work to a close.

"...Sounds Like This" moves away from the progressive canons, and is rather an interesting sample of corrosive and primitive classic rock, something that Nektar would not repeat in the following years.

3/3.5 stars