siLLy puPPy It’s a music lover’s wet dream when one of their most revered under appreciated bands from the early 70s, who released but a couple albums and then faded into the ethers like a footnote in a voluminous tome, finally scrapes out the decades-old barrels and finds a few goodies to throw out to their staunch and loyal followers. Such is the case in 2017 when from out of the blue the short-lived heavy prog outfit CAPTAIN BEYOND unexpectedly puts out a new compilation called LOST & FOUND 1972-1973. How are the fans to take this? Is this a litmus test to see how well received it is and prognosticate a possible reunion and dare i even say - new album? Yes, the early 70s heavy prog rockers led by ex-Deep Purple vocalist Rod Evans along with guitarists Larry Reinhard and Lee Dorman from Iron Butterfly and drummer Bobby Caldwell who played with Johnny Winter crafted their supergroup into a major cult hit but never really got the respect they deserved and after two decent albums and one not so much so disbanded presumably never to be heard from again.

Well before you get your knickers too much in a bind, let me just state clearly that this is NOT an album that consists of entirely new material. Well, there is one new track that never was released but otherwise this is merely a collection of demos and alternate takes. Most of these tracks appeared (in final form of course) on the eponymous debut album whereas one comes from the oft loathed third album “Dawn Explosion.” Curiously there is nothing from the second album “Sufficiently Breathless.” This album is exactly what you would expect, namely a collection of material that was probably never meant to see the sunlight outside of its eternal crypt in someone’s basement or attic or who knows where with all the raw and gritty pre-production values one could imagine. And that’s exactly what we get here.

The only totally new track here is the hilariously titled “Uranus Expressway” (yeah, i can’t help but thinking it could be nicknamed “Hershey Highway!!!!” LOL. Despite the silly title, this is a serious bluesy rock track that is nothing out of the ordinary from the day and wisely left off of the debut album for it doesn’t have that progressive flair like many of those earliest of tracks. It actually echoes back to a more primeval era of Deep Purple minus John Lord’s keyboard contributions, of course, but actually a decent energetic rocker that finds the band in fine form with a tinge of Southern twang that correlates the Johnny Winter connection. All in all these are interesting relics from the past and will undoubtedly be ravishingly devoured by rabid fans foaming at the mouth for any scraps of residue from the hitherto inaccessible vaults, but other than the single new track there isn’t much that is out of the ordinary from what’s actually on their albums. It’s not like these tracks are so different compared to some of those on the Beatles’ different versions for example. This is definitely a good and worthy extra supplement for any collector’s shelves but not one i feel warrants the essential label. Nice album cover :)

Modrigue Stoning beyond our galaxy

Consider the musical universe of the 70's. If HAWKWIND was the stoner captain in our Milky Way, CAPTAIN BEYOND was another one, however clearly navigating through a different galaxy. Where do those space corsairs comes from? This obscure band is in fact a supergroup composed of former members of well-known prestigious formations: ex-DEEP PURPLE's vocalist Rod Evans, ex-IRON BUTTERFLY's guitarist Larry Reinhardt and bassist Lee Dorman and ex-Johnny WINTER's drummer Bobby Caldwell. So is this another hard-blues formation? A pale copy of the aforementioned bands? Not at all.

CAPTAIN BEYOND's eponymous debut really is an unique mixture of hard/heavy riffs with space/psychedelic/acid rock elements. Is it progressive? Yes, in a sense that this album is more a patchwork than a collection of songs. The music is unpredictable, evolving, moving, as if the CAPTAIN was constantly re-adapting the trajectory of his ship through the unexpected turbulences of the cosmic void. Furthermore, the record is catchy, accessible and avoids being repetitive or messy. The tracks are full of unusual changes and breaks, years before RUSH's proto-prog-metal. This is no touristic stationary cruising, prepare to be surprised. There are signs that do not lie: the original cover art was in 3D. Fasten your seatbelts, an epic journey through undiscovered stellar systems awaits you...

Rather than 13 tracks, the disc should been rather seen as composed of 3 mini-epics plus 2 songs. The first 3 tracks form the first mini-epic, lasting 9 minutes. The take-off is immediate with the heavy "Dancing Madly Backwards", its acceleration and solo will send you directly beyond our galaxy through a wormhole to an unknown destination. Mindblowing! The floating syncoped "Armworth" symbolizes the arrival, introducing the calm and ambient "Myopic Void". You can now rest and admire the stars. Don't relax too much though, the ship re-accelerates to speed of light for a boosted-up reprise of "Armworth"'s theme. The finale is a genuine sonic deflagration. Simply great! One of the best space heavy rocks from the 70's! The aggressive "Mesmerization Eclipse" is a very nice hard rock with many rhythm changes, while "Raging River Of Fear" sounds like DEEP PURPLE on serious acids. It even includes a small jazz-rock interlude.

The next 3 tracks are the second 9 minutes long mini-epic. Don't rely on the acoustic introduction "Thousand Days Of Yesterdays (Intro)", "Frozen Over" is a evolving black hole that gets as thrilling as RUSH's "Cygnus X-1", years ahead! The surprising reprise is terrific! "Thousand Days Of Yesterdays (Time since come and gone)" concludes on a lighter SANTANA-like tone. The last 5 tracks from the third 10 minutes suite. Starting as a cool hard rock, "I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 1)" turns out to be pretty ferocious, until "As The Moon Speaks (To The Waves Of The Sea)" arrives as a welcomed pause when you can peacefully admire star systems at the window... However, the journey is not over yet. The (very) short raging "Astral Lady" unveils a beautiful solo on "As The Moon Speaks (Return)" and prepares the reprise "I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 2)". As you may now expect, the finale is once again worthy of its predecessors. Blimey!

What a pretty impressive journey beyond the stars! "Captain Beyond" is a little spatial treasure containing lots of gems. The quality is constant and the interest maintained intact through the many unexpected changes and the surprise factor is always there, even after several listens. Gorgeous riffs, spacey moments, Rod Evans' rock'n'roll crooner accents and Bobby Caldwell's original rhythms bring the final touches making this album quite special.

CAPTAIN BEYOND's self-titled debut is typically what astrophysicists call a singularity: unique and uncategorizeable. A sonic meteorite or a comet only visible once per century, carrying the listener among several musical stellar systems. The band already exposes innovative ideas and their own identity here. An essential trip for 70's hard/heavy/stoner/space rock lovers! Don't miss the spaceship!

The singularity notion also has its drawbacks: the next albums will unfortunately not be as inspired and breathtaking, the musicians themselves looking like they've lost the coordinates of this extraterrestrial music...

voila_la_scorie Following the paths of the various members of Deep Purple lead me to Captain Beyond. DP Mk I vocalist Rod Evans took up the mic for Captain Beyond. But what thrilled me was that Iron Butterfly's guitarist Larry (Rhino) Rienhardt and bassist Lee Dorman were also part of this outfit. Rhino appeared on the final Butterfly studio effort Metamorphosis before the band split up for a while (restarted later for two albums by "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"/"Ball" guitarist Erik Brann). Metamorphosis is my favourite Iron Butterfly album because of the guitar sound and variety of riffs, rhythms and time signatures.

Captain Beyond's first album does not disappoint. It starts off a rock album with no gimmicks or tricks. Rhino's innovative guitar playing is backed by a heavy rhythm section provided by Dorman's bass and the splintering drums of Bobby Caldwell (Who? Well, you know him now!). The man has a full arsenal of drumming skill and he doesn't hold back. Rod Evans was never much of a hard rock vocalist but he gives it a good effort, sometimes surprisingly on the edge, once or twice a little over the edge of his abilities. By the time the album reaches tracks four and five - "Mesmerization Eclipse" and "Raging River of Fear" respectively - you are starting to wonder if these guys plan to just rock away the whole album. In fact, there are only a couple of acoustic parts and no real ballads. Any track that starts slow doesn't stay that way for much more than a minute. Then it's back to the hard rock and roll machinegun attack. The final track "I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part II)" closes the album with a brief but rock out tune that should encourage fist pumping and head banging.

Like Iron Butterfly's "Metamorphosis", Captain Beyond's first album features ever changing guitar riffs, chord progressions, and time signatures. As my old guitar teacher said about Butterfly, "It's as if they are trying to put as many notes in the song as possible." The album has two song clusters, groups of related tracks with parts and intros. Sometimes it is hard to tell when one track has ended and the next has begun. The lyrics of "Myopic Void" close with the title for "Dancing Madly Backwards (On a Sea of Air)". On the other hand, the 15- second instrumental "Astral Lady" is nothing more than a guitar solo joining "As the Moon Speaks (To the Waves of the Sea)" and "As the Moon Speaks (Return)". You might wonder why the guitar break was only 15 seconds. What was the point of giving it a name? Maybe it was a psychedelic thing.

The guitar sound never gets really heavy with distortion. A suitable comparison would be Oasis's "F**king in the Bushes". Nevertheless, the album rocks and Captain Beyond proves to have no shortage of ideas for the guitar. By the time the album has played through you'll be wondering what hit you.

As a proto-metal album it fits the bill nicely. Highly recommended to heavy prog and 70's hard rock fans.

UMUR "Dawn Explosion" is the 3rd full-length studio album by US hard rock act Captain Beyond. The album was released through Warner Bros. Records in 1977. The band had broken up by the end of 1973 but reformed again in 1976 with new lead vocalist Willie Daffern. He replaces Rod Evans (Ex-Deep Purple). Drummer Bobby Caldwell, bassist Lee Dorman (Ex-Iron Butterfly) and guitarist Larry Reinhardt are still featured in the lineup, who recorded the band´s second album "Sufficiently Breathless (1973)".

The music style on the album is hard rock in the softer end of the spectrum and I´m reminded more than one time of Wishbone Ash in their mid 70es period and albums like "There´s the Rub (1974)", "Locked In (1976)", "New England (1976)" and "Front Page News (1977)". I was really impressed with Captain Beyond´s 1972 self-titled debut album which is through and through a fantastic album and I thought "Sufficiently Breathless (1973)" was decent too, but on "Dawn Explosion" it´s like the music lacks power and soul. New lead vocalist Willie Daffern has a somewhat similar sounding voice to Rod Evans but he isn´t nearly as convincing as Evans. The three veterans in the band, who handle the instrumental part of the music, are all skilled musicians and that´s fortunately obvious throughout the album.

"Dawn Explosion" feautures a decent sound production that suits the music. Compared to the more layered sound on "Sufficiently Breathless (1973)" (which featured an omnipresent piano), the sound on "Dawn Explosion" is a more stripped down and hard rocking affair. Still it´s like the tracks are a bit halfbaked and uninspired, and paired with the fact that Willie Daffern isn´t exactly a reinforcement on the lead vocalist spot, "Dawn Explosion" isn´t the comeback it could have been. A 2.5 star (50%) rating is warranted.

Warthur Captain Beyond's self-titled album combines hard rock heroics with prog-derived song suite structures to offer up a memorable trip. With Rod Evans adding a quintessentially hard rock voice to proceedings and Larry Reinhardt delivering a similarly muscular performance, this certainly isn't one of the more delicate or pretty prog albums of the 1970s, but it does deserve to sit alongside the early Queen albums as a good example of how prog song structures can rock with the best of them. The album was dedicated to the late Duane Allman, who had helped convince Capricorn Records to take on the supergroup, and there's definitely a certain bluesiness to the riffing here and there, so if you wanted to hear what the Allman Brothers or Cream would have sounded like had they turned their music in a proggier direction this album might just answer that question.