History notes that Captain Beyond was one of the first "survivor" bands of the Seventies. Formed by discarded and/or disgruntled veterans of Deep Purple, Iron Butterfly and Johnny Winter's group, their main claim to fame was the intriguing 3-D picture that graced their first album cover. Their music, flying over the same cosmic territory as most other hard-rock bands of the day, was so nondescript that within two years they had disappeared, leaving a short, one-page file in the memory banks of only the most trivia-oriented rock fans.

Dawn Explosion marks the band's return from that great heavy-metal graveyard in the sky, and though they've changed their stance (they now lean toward fusion music), the net result is the same: well intentioned but distinctly second-rate. The only personnel change is on lead vocal, where Willie Daffern has replaced Rod Evans, and though Daffern is a decent singer, he, like the band he fronts, is totally faceless and undistinguished. Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt's guitar riffs hard when the going gets tough and waxes melodic at the appropriate introspective moments, but other than one passable pop song ("Do or Die") and an amusing Jeff Beck-ish instrumental ("Oblivion"), Dawn Explosion serves only as a reminder that sometimes the best advice is to simply let sleeping dogs lie. (RS 246)

BILLY ALTMAN