Chances are if you blinked twice in the 70's, then you probably missed out on Space Opera, one of most obscure and certainly vastly underrated bands to emerge out of that decade. Formed in 1969 in Fort Worth Texas the band's sound was hard to pin down, as they deftly combined elements of progressive and country tinged rock, with modern classical arrangements and often cryptic lyrics, to come up with a sound that was definitely all their own. Their self titled debut was released only in Canada, on Epic Records in 1973, but sadly they were never given a chance to follow it up and they ended up disbanding not long afterwards. Their second album, titled appropriately enough Space Opera II appeared independently in 2000.

Now ten years down the road, the sole surviving member of Space Opera, vocalist / guitarist David Bullock, along with It's About Music label head Dean Sciarra, have assembled this stellar collection of previously unreleased recordings called Safe At Home. Rounded out by Scott Fraser, Phil White and Brett Wilson, they not only had four multi-instrumentalists in the band, but they also had the luxury of having three distinct vocalists as well, which added further depth and color to their overall sound.

Comprised of songs that were recorded prior to the sessions for that first album, along with sessions in 1975 and 1977-78 respectively, Safe At Home reveals a band at the height of their creative prowess. The absolutely magnificent and free flowing three song suite of music that kicks off this collection is alone reason enough to seek out this disc. Superbly crafted arrangements, densely layered and multi-textured passages, along with a plethora of soaring vocal harmonies and plenty of killer hooks and infectious melodies, were the key ingredients to Space Opera's sound and there is plenty of it on display throughout the course of this collection. As mentioned the "Singer's and Sailors" suite is a definite highlight, as is "Country Max" (a song which showed up in slightly different form on their first album) with its catchy, layered chorus. "Marlow" and "Over and Over" (another track that made it to the debut) are other tracks worthy of mention. In my opinion the first nine tracks, which were all recorded in 1970-71, are stronger than anything on that first album, and that's saying quite a bit because their debut is extremely solid from beginning to end. The second half of Safe At Home finds the band experimenting a bit more with their arrangements and incorporating woodwinds into the mix, which makes for some very interesting results, especially on the tracks "Bells Within Bells", "Psychic Vampires", "Caledonia" and "Snow Is Falling".

Trying to put into words the all encompassing sound of Space Opera is no easy task and any comparisons to other bands seem to ultimately fall short of what these guys were all about. However, to get a better idea of what they sound like, picture Kansas, Crosby Stills and Nash and The Byrds getting together in a room, mix in further elements of folk rock and Mersey Beat vocal harmonies and that should give you a rough idea. Intrigued yet? Readers of this website really need to hear this band and you can't go wrong with any of their albums. Kudos to It's About Music for continuing to get great music like this out to the masses.