I wouldn't have found the good Captain here if it wasn't for the podcast Tell 'Em Steve Dave, on Kevin Smith's Smodcast Network. Captain Beyond was a 70's Supergroup of sorts. Lead singer Rod Evans was the original lead singer of Deep Purple, and preformed their hit song Hush. After three albums with Deep Purple he was let go and they brought in Ian Gillan and they became the superstars they are today. Rod went on to form Captain Beyond with former members of Iron Butterfly and Johnny Winter's band. Captain Beyond is pure 70's Prog Rock. They dig into these large concepts of places and ideas and spread them out through the songs. It's trippy, and a rockin' good time.
A lot of the songs on the album flow together, which adds to the experience of listening to this album as a whole. The first three tracks, Dancing Madly Backwards (On a Sea of Air), Armworth and Myopic Void are all one related concept. As well as tracks 6-8, Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Intro), Frozen Over, and Thousand Days of Yesterdays 9Time Since Come and Gone), leaving tracks 9-13 to form their own concept, which you can get the idea of just from the song titles; I Can't Feel Nothin', Pt. 1, As the Moon Speaks (To the Waves of the Sea), Astral Lady, As The Moon Speaks (Return) and I Can't Feel Nothin', Pt. 2. This With these three long form concepts taking hold of the album, the two stand-alone tracks 4-5, Mesmerization Eclipse and Raging River of Fear can get lost, and that's a shame because they're great catchy tracks. The album focuses on space, the concept of loneliness, the moon and the sea. Clocking in at just over 35 minutes for this 13 track album, Captain Beyond just sails on through and plunges forward, and before you know it, you've finished.
It's a quick album, which is surprising for a 70's Prog Rock album. It explores all sorts of interesting concepts, but before it lingers anywhere too long it's onto the next subject. My favorite tracks have got to be the Thousand Days of Yesterdays section, aka songs 6-8, especially Frozen Over. That riff really just grooves with me. Sadly, original guitarist Larry Reinhardt and original bassist Lee Dorman, both from Iron Butterfly, died last year. Reinhardt had been trying to get Rod Evans to return so they could do an original band reunion. We'll only ever have this self-titled album that contained the original line-up of Captain Beyond that was on this record. Their next release had them replace drummer/songwriter Bobby Caldwell, and their third and final album had another 2 members of Iron Butterfly and Rod Evans was replaced. So here we have it, 35 minutes of a band that could never lock into one lineup and would never return to the magic that was captured in this recording ever again. It's a hidden gem I think fans of 70's Rock and Prog Rock should check out.
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