Towards Utopia (feat. Steve Howe)

I would imagine most people coming to this CD will be YES (or at least early YES) fans trying to hear what Steve Howe sounded like prior to his YES career. You won't be disappointed as it's a fine CD. When the opening guitar chords of the first track 'Nether Street' kick in you know immediately it's Steve Howe as he's using a riff later re-surfacing in 'Starship Trooper' and there are a few other references throughout the album.It comes with a nice booklet with comments from Steve and some vintage pictures. As he says in the liner notes "what we (Bodast) did here was really at that point when prog rock was coming through and psychedelia was being replaced". It's a good description. His previous band Tomorrow were very psychedelic (and very good too) but with Bodast you can hear the germ of prog rock being explored but to be fair it's mostly late 60s (the album was originally recorded in 1969 but never released) to early 70s guitar based rock.As you'd expect the guitar playing is excellent and especially on the 3 tracks from their earlier incarnation as 'Canto', included here as bonus tracks.Better than i'd expected and surprising it was never released at the time....8 out of 10.

Very cool album that deserved to be released but never was because the record company went bust. Very clear sound makes this a very interesting listen filled with super tight playing and the incredible Steve Howe guitar sound. I guess fate must have intervened because if this had come out when it should have the Greatest Song Yes ever did, "Starship Trooper", probably never would have been realized since the first song "Nether Street" uses the exact same chord structure. Plus parts of the extraordinary guitar solo by Steve Howe used in that classic can be heard here. Amazing stuff then with very well done vocals and amazing guitar pyrotechnics!

I love this band but find this an inferior representation of their work. A CD release on the French CS label mixed by Steve Howe is far and away superior and worth seeking out. A disappointment coming from the otherwise sterling Esoteric label.