Artist: Captain Beyond
Album: Lost & Found 1972-1973
Label: Cleopatra
Release Date: 6/15/2017
For an all-too microcosmic period in the early 1970s, Capricon Records, a haven for Southern rock, musically spaced out by signing the wholly underrated and superbly mighty Captain Beyond to the label.
Combining world geographies and members of such classic bands as Deep Purple, Johnny Winter and Iron Butterfly, Captain Beyond unleashed a brand of out-of-this-world hard rock that set the precedent for more established bands like Hawkwind and Blue Oyster Cult to flourish.
Most of the tracks on this compilation aren’t new, considering they’re demos that helped the group’s eponymous first album come to fruition. Still, they prove a particularly great testament to the talents of singer Rod Evans, who even in this mode sounds at the top of his vocal game. Despite their humble beginnings, you can tell this was a band with great promise: “Raging River of Fear” and “Dancing Madly Backwards (On a Sea of Air)” prove that in spades.
This album shines further with the incorporation of a “new” track, “Uranus Expressway,” which should have been included on their first album. “Icarus” is another demo kept off the group’s two albums with Evans, but would have melded perfectly with the band’s unique vision of intergalactic and interstellar rock.
Though the group’s prime period would last only a couple of years, this compilation proves they’re still one-of-a-kind. What once was lost should now happily find its way into your collections, especially if you love all things prog/hard rock.
—Ira Kantor
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