SUFFICIENTLY BREATHLESS

I've always been a big fan of Captain Beyond. I got all of their albums right when they came out and was lucky enough to be living in Melbourne Florida where they played one of the dates on their Y2K tour when Caldwell and Rhino were trying to put the band back together.

If you can distance yourself from the debut album, it's easier to see how great an album this one is. If you are looking for more of album one, well this will seem like a let down because it's so different. But it's that difference that makes it good in it's own way.

I would agree that the addition of keyboards and latin percussion was an attempt to cash in on the Santana vibe that was so big at the time.

The excellent title track is just a beautiful guitar work out for Rhino. Beautiful 12 string guitar stuff and a nice solo in the middle. The lyrics are a little odd and spacey...but hey, this is Captain Beyond, remember? If it weren't for the oddness, this could have been top 40...it's real catchy. Personally, I just love the acoustic guitar intro (a real treat for any lover of guitar).

The other truly excellent cut is Starglow Energy, a slow song which slowly builds up to a smoldering classic. Rhino and Dorman are just fantastic on this cut, but the stand out is Evans: this has to be his single best Captain Beyond vocal performance.

There are lots of nice touches through out the album. Sometimes it reminds me more of Iron Butterfly than Captain Beyond. Always thought that Voyages of Lost Travellers and it's segue into Everything's a Circle was beautifully done. Drifting In Space has a great electric piano solo by Reese Wynans.

One point to clear up about the writing credits: ALL of the members wrote the first album, but Dorman and Rhino still had ties to their former record company so they gave the writing credits on the first album just to Evans and Caldwell. To even things out, Dorman got most of the writing credits on this album, and Rhino got more of the credits on Dawn Explosion.

This is in that 3 to 4 star range.