Review Summary: A magic journey
Sometimes, when you take some psychedelic drugs you end up appreciating an album in a totally different way. The synesthesia that drugs like LSD or shrooms can create ends up turning an album into a beautiful trip; the deeper thinking you might get from these drugs can have such an effect that you'll end up seeing different meanings for every lyric and even note that you hear.
But also there are cases where you can experience a whole psychedelic trip without taking drugs, one of these cases is Changes by the unknown british band Catapilla.
Formed in the late 60's in London, they were one of the biggest discoveries by Black Sabbath's manager, Patrick Meehann. Their sound can be described as the spaciest space prog to be conceived; creating an atmosphere similar to the one we see in bands like Hawkwind, Gong or Pink Floyd. From the very first song Changes manages to be impressive: Anna Meek's powerful voice entering softly on the beginning of
Reflections immersing us into the world of Catapilla just to be surprised by the blast that Robert Calvert's sax is, accompanied by Graham Wilson's guitar and Ralph Robinson's keys. The atmosphere created in here is solemn, dense and magic.
Changes is one of the best examples of instrumentation at its finest, the talent here displayed is just amazing, the whole band playing together manages to grab the listener's attention and mind and won't let him go until the very end of the album. When you listen to an album like this you can't help but by closing you eyes and letting the music take you to a whole new world. Meek's operatic voice is full of life and power yet at the same time is extremly warm and elegant, and Calvert's work with the sax is probably the best you'll hear in a prog album, the same goes for Wilson's guitar, his work is stunning, creating a sound that melts perfectly with the rest of the instruments in the album.
The atmosphere here is so dense that there's exactly the only "problem" some people may find within the LP: all the four songs go onto the same vein and that can make of this a tough pill to digest for some people even when Changes should rather be listened to as a whole instead of four different songs. That's why, as an advice, everyone should just sit, focus only on the album and let their minds flow, since you're warned that there's a whole journey to be discovered in here that deserves full attention.
Despite the similarity within its songs, Changes is still an essential listen for every psychedelic/prog fan, it hits hard and the skills here showed are just amazing, skills that end up creating a magnificent, ethereal and trippy atmosphere that's not easy to forget.
That being said, it doesn't seem like there's any other problem with this release, as it has already been said the album is superb when we refer to its technical display and that only leads up to the sad conclussion that there were many bands in the 70's that never got the attention they deserved. This was Catapilla's second and last album before Calvert went on to play in Gong off-shoots and the group disbanded. The hard truth of bands that fall into an obscure yet always amazing realm of unknown progressive rock.
In 1972 Catapilla were:
Anna Meek - Vocals
Carl Wassard - Bass
Graham Wilson - Guitar
Ralph Rolinson - Keyboards
Robert Calvert - Saxophone
Brian Hanson - Drums
