review by daniel

Nektar’s debut is a concept album about a man exploring outer space as well as his inner self. And learning that earth is heading towards extinction, and worth rescuing, on his way. With such a concept the music could only be space rock, right? I guess you can call it space rock since trademarks, such as the electronical “space sounds” and the general electric roughness, of that genre are present. You should not expect it to sound like Hawkwind, though. Nektar is way more diverse and sophisticated and does not rely on repetition the way Hawkwind does. The musicians are better as well. The rhythm section (Derek Moore on bass and Ron Howden on drums) are really solid and the keyboards (played by Allan Freeman) sound great as well. The mellotron is used mainly for beautiful and atmospheric background textures, while the organ sometimes challenges the guitar for the leading role. Speaking of the guitar; Roye Albrighton sure knows how to play it. He has a rough and crunchy sound that I like a lot, and he is versatile enough to be able to awaken a range of emotions (at least in this listener) as well.

I have the recently released SACD reissue of the album. I haven’t had the opportunity to listen to the SACD mix, but the ordinary stereo mix is really good with plenty of air for each instrument to “breathe”. There are two bonus tracks on the CD as well. They do not sound like the rest of the album; more like mainstream, guitar-based 70s rock (when the keyboards finally show up on “1-2-3-4” the tune has already started to fade out). They are decent enough, but they just seem out of place here.

It is a pity the vocals (performed by the guitarist) never reach the same heights as the instrumental parts. There is nothing wrong with the vocalist’s voice when he sings on his own. Unfortunately he is often supported by echoing backing vocals or poor electronic manipulation (or is it the old tin? - you really cannot tell). It might work for the concept (if you have a lively imagination you can pretend that the singer is lost in space, not in a tin), but not for the music. This is, however, not a huge flaw since about half of the album is instrumental. Further more, the vocalised parts are usually rather good, and when they are not, they never get bad enough to ruin the overall impression.