Spock's Beard Octane

On his second outing as Spock’s Beard’s front man, Nick D’Virgilio finds himself still building on what he started on “Feel Euphoria”, being a tougher, more aggressive sound than on previous Beard releases. “Octane”, the band’s eighth, finds them taking this approach full circle. The centerpiece of the release is the multi-part “A Flash Before My Eyes”, spanning seven tracks and the life of a man who has just been in a car wreck and watches his life, as the title indicates, flash before his eyes. The achievement here is that each track acts as a song yet remains interconnected. This is good, because some tracks like the outstanding “She Is Everything” deserve a small degree of autonomy, rather than just being enslaved as a movement.

“NWC” is to this disc what “YYZ” was to Rush’s “Moving Pictures” album; a tough little rock minded instrumental, which is apparently exactly what the band wanted it to be. The closing “As Long As We Ride” is a punchy road trip kind of song, the perfect tonic for when your buddy dares to put “Born To Be Wild” on the deck for the hundred millionth time (don’t get me started on Steppenwolf; I’ll surely offend you).

The thing “Octane” is missing, what “Feel Euphoria” had, was the eclecticism of sounds and styles. This disc is focused to the teeth, and that can never be a really bad thing, but that was achieved at the sacrifice of the previous disc’s carefree spirit. Nonetheless, if you don’t mind the “song-cycle” format and you want to hear musicians at their prime, Beard’s “Octane” nicely hits the spot.