DANCING MADLY BACKWARDS

Even though I was the lead singer for Axcraft, I can truthfully say that the album is nowhere near great. But that does not mean that it's not worth owning or at least listening. The group has never been paid any royalties, even though it's being sold worldwide on the AKARMA album label which is owned by Bill Holmes. I plan to make some changes on the album and distribute it myself. I am also in the process of releasing a second Axcraft album from tapes that are in my possesion. So try and hold out for my reissue of the first Axcraft album, ( DANCING MADLY BACKWARDS), and the soon to be released second album. Oh yeah, the album is worth listening to, and we were a very good band, to bad outside influences got in the way.

This is actually a pretty bland album, and the few reviews I’ve read all seem to come either from former members of the band, family members, or other close friends. Axcraft clearly never made much of an inroad to the music community outside their immediate area.

This is also their only album as far as I know, and I don’t believe the band was in existence for very long either. There is very little information to be found about these guys, which leads me to believe they were a local band that made whatever living they managed by playing small venues and as an opening act.

The keyboards are not complex, but they are played in a typical seventies American style – i.e., fast, spirited, and pretty much in synch with the electric guitars. The drum work is decent at best, and the lyrics are mostly light and vaguely spacey in nature and theme.

There are some decent piano passages, notably at the beginning of “Astral Love” and a little bit on the title track. Otherwise this is a mediocre album, and pretty forgettable in the spectrum of seventies music.

There are a couple live tracks at the end that actually sound like they are open-air recordings, not even from the soundboard. I’m not sure if this is accurate, but in any case the recording quality is quite muddled and a definite distraction from the music.

I don’t know much about these guys, and frankly haven’t spent much time trying to find out much. Akarma released this on CD for some reason, but you probably won’t find it except by accident. Or if you make a real attempt to locate it, but don’t bother. Two stars.

peace

Here's a review from a person who just discovered the band, since being a former member of a band means you can't give a balanced review. So with that said, I think this album is very under rated and just great. The sound quality may not be top notch but considering this was most likely a local band, its pretty damn good. Dancing Madly Backwards is a wonderful American symphonic album that doesn't distract itself with overtly hard rock or,as much as I hate this term, pomp rock ventures. Its just pure prog rock. And for anyone who is either American or a fan of American progressive rock knows, there is not much out of it around. So I think people should buy this album not only because its a great prog album, but also because it deserves its place in American Progressive Rock History.

Axcraft from USA with one album released in 1974 named Dancing madly backwords is an ok album to me, noting really impressive nothing is bad aswell. Symphonic prog melted with heavy prog sections al in all pretty decent. Akarma label re release the album both on vinyl and as digipack in 1999, the cd version with 2 bonus live tunes recorded in same 1974 before disbanding one year later and gone unnoticed to larger public. As some reviewers said this abum got mix reviews from bad to excellent, I'm somewher in between and saying that this is not bad at all, Astral ove is a killer track with beautiful piano intro and then tranformed in some mid tempo giant prog piece, really great. The opening track is a fair one So fgar away, heavy prog with pleasent parts and fine keybords solo, the rest of the pieces are ok, title track is another worthy one. All in all a good album, nothing really impressive as other mentioned, I can't find that brilliant segments some praised with aplomb, it's only fairly good. 3 stars for sure no more no less. The bonus tracks are totaly usless and by far the worst on the CD re issue, totaly forgetable pieces. Worth some spins, but not exactly one of the gems of prog from mid '70's.

This exceptionally obscure and rare release from United States based Axcraft is not without merit but certainly isn't that lost diamond in the rough you've been searching for. Like its namesake, Captain Beyond's debut, this is a heavy rock album with prog fringes. Apparently it was never properly finished, which I suppose adds to the albums lack of luster, but none of the songs are particularly memorable. The sound is always derivative and the musicians, while competent, don't jump out of the speakers at all. The only way I'd recommend this to anyone is if they were really into Captain Beyond.

Keep it Symphonic guys, that's where you shine! Here's my track-by-track opinion:

So Far Away: If you imagine it with violin and a different arrangement, it could be a Kansas song. It's quite interesting, since it starts as a mainstream rocker and in the middle it changes structure significantly, showing its prog elements. Pretty good start!

Astral Love: Supertramp is the first band that came to mind with this piano and brass intro. As long as it goes on, it seems very close to Pavlov's Dog "At the Sound of the Bell", which was released 2 years after Dancing Madly Backwards was recorded! Astral Love is a very beautiful Symphonic/Art song, it deserves the attention of every fan of the genre(s)!

727 Suite: Typical Symphonic Prog sample, could also be found in Pavlov's Dog's At the Sound of the Bell. It won me over, and I played it again. Not a bad album so far, on the contrary!

Firewheel: Sounds beautiful at first, but at 5:39 it doesn't offer anything special. It could be only 3 minutes long and be "just another song". Probably the most indifferent so far.

Dancing Madly Backwards: Beautiful and pompous song, but it suffers from the same problem as the previous one: it does not justify its duration, which in this case exceeds 9 minutes. I would have expected more with this length, not so much repetition.

Vahalla: Here we have a typo from the company, the title is Valhalla and not Vahalla. Axcraft's sound is grafted with elements of Hawkwind here, in a slow song with heavy climaxes, which doesn't leave any particular mark to me.

Love Is Blue: Psychedelic heavy ballad, that sounds more like the late 60s than anything else on this album. Its crescendo is both expected and dull to my ears.

Rating: Until 727 Suite I thought the album was going for 3 stars, but it ends up at 2. We hear a band that is finding its feet, playing a little bit of everything, and finally ends up without an identity, while its call seems to have been clearly in Pavlov's Dog-like Symphonic Prog, which I personally love. Would they have managed to become great in this genre if they continued? We'll never know?