Nektar – Time Machine
Cleopatra Records
http://cleorecs.com/store/shop/nektar-time-machine

Rating: B

Nektar is back! 

If you are a Prog Rock nerd then you are saying “WOO HOO” and jumping up and down wetting your pants with excitement.  If you are only a casual partaker of Prog then you are going, “Man, that name sounds familiar” and if you are a music fan who thinks Yes were a pop band that only released one album called 90125, then you are saying, “Who is Nektar?” 

Well, for my Proggy Faithful, I have exciting news…Nektar is back with their first album of new material in four years and band leader Roye Albrighton is calling Time Machine “The best album we have ever made!”  And he may just be right. 

This time out Nektar has done is right.  The songs are all thought out, complex and just as freaky-deaky as any good Prog should be.  However, they have achieved that odd Prog Rock counterbalance where the music, despite being complicated and complex, is easily accessible to the common music fan. 

Yes indeed, this is Prog Rock your girlfriend can listen too—that is if you HAVE a girlfriend, as we know the life of a true Prog Rocker can be a lonely lot!  Still, maybe with this release you can GET a girlfriend!

The band, while retaining their classic sound, also gives a nod to some early Genesis in their musical composition on Time Machine.  Nektar really open it up on “Tranquility” and “Diamond Eyes.”  “Destiny” is a musical and emotional tune while “Talk to Me” may be one of the best they have ever written.  Opening number “A Better Way” is breathtakingly good. 

Time Machine lives up to it’s name, as it really is like stepping back to the Prog heyday of the early 1970’s, yet the songs still sound fresh and impressive in 2013, proving good music is good music no matter what the date stamp says. 

And unlike tuna fish, this stuff never goes bad!  

By Jeb Wright