Journey to the Centre of the Eye (1971)

Artist: Nektar
Release Year: 1971

Rating: 5/10

Track Listing: 1) Prelude; 2) Astronaut's Nightmare; 3) Countenance; 4) The Nine Lifeless Daughters of the Sun; 5) Warp Oversight; 6) The Dream Nebula I; 7) The Dream Nebula II; 8) It's All in the Mind; 9) Burn Out My Eyes; 10) Void of Vision; 11) Pupil of the Eye; 12) Look Inside Yourself; 13) Death of the Mind.

Wait…this is supposed to be the story of an astronaut having some great Awakening near Saturn, right?  Is that album art a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey?  Wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, here's Nektar in the wake of a wider psychedelic movement, which means they were practically forced to lean extra hard into their natural trippy tendencies.  The "Prelude" and "Astronaut's Nightmare" manage to sound adequately epic despite being slightly generic, at least in terms of resembling what others bands like The Pretty Things were doing around the same time.  But while said Pretty Things often sounded strained while doing hard rock, from these guys it sounds more natural, so that's good.  There's also a bit of mannerism in those verses that inject some sadness, some lamentation, making us feel a greater weight in what's to come.  

Unfortunately, what's to come is largely a mess, especially today.  "Countenance" is a good primer for so many other Nektar releases: an eerie, dusky, slow buildup to a sudden heavy psychedelic guitar freakout, with some good old "aahh-ahh-ahh" in the background too.  Nice, but then this is overextended into "Nine Lifeless Daughters", which goes nowhere for several minutes before devolving into the needless cacophony that is "Warp Oversight".  Obviously, this was meant as an imitation of "Interstellar Overdrive", but I assume that without a healthy dose of LSD or something, I'm just not going to get it.

I just wish they wouldn't wander around so much before they get to the good stuff.  What's with the wholesome, 50s throwback vocals AND the Mellotron together in "It's All in the Mind"?  And why is it mixed so badly?  Is this a lost track from Epitaph or something?  But those flute solos do have something going for them.  After that one, though, the album slumps into some interesting, but disjointed and half-baked segments done over an annoying organ riff...yuck.

With a bit more focus, this album could have been great, but it just bogs down in psychedelic tangents too often at the expense of melody.  Moments of bittersweet, revelatory beauty are present ("Burn Out My Eyes" in particular), but the strangely tinny production really doesn't help here-- all those organs and cymbals really grate on the ears.  Interesting, with some solid playing throughout, but very little of this can back up the "profound spiritual awakening" that it implicitly claims to provide.