02 August 2025

DA CAPTAIN TRIPS – In Between (2025, LP/CD, Subsound Records

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Subsound Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl, 300 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, White Transparent Vinyl, 200 copies

Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition, Digipak, 500 copies

Release Date: 27 June 2025

With “In Between”, their fifth full-length outing, Italian psych voyagers Da Captain Trips return after a three-year silence, diving into the metaphysical unknown. Inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, this album is more than just music—it’s an attempt to sonically navigate that liminal space between life and death, where consciousness floats free and undefined. Built on improvisation, instinct, and introspection, “In Between” unravels as a deeply atmospheric journey where light and darkness constantly wrestle. This is not background music – it’s a ritual, a passage, a trip.

“In Between” contains 6 tracks, 3 on each side of the vinyl album, and it kicks off with “Die”, which pulls you into a slow, thick soup of synth haze and creeping dread. It doesn’t rush – just lingers and expands until it cracks open and the band’s full sound kicks in, introducing grinding guitars, humming synths, and drums that can shift the floor under your feet! But there’s more! The second half of the track goes deeper, sliding into a trippy, prog-drenched swirl, heavy and heady… The low rumbling “Whispers” follows, haunted keys, and basslines that crawl up your spine – it builds slowly, but when the solo hits, it doesn’t explode – it leans in and murmurs shit you’re not ready to hear… “Spiralis” starts almost ambient, but with this quiet tension underneath, like it’s waiting to strike. And it does, but not loud. It just grows bigger, heavier, deeper. Guitars drift, the bass pulses like a heartbeat in a cave, and then out of nowhere comes a solo that sounds like it’s trying to remember who it was in a past life. “Back to Sargassian” opens side B. Guitars chime like distant signals, and then the whole thing lifts off. The band’s tight as hell, bass bounces hard, drums twist the groove just enough, and the keys and guitar throw weird shapes in the air. “Land of Shades” is shadowy and tense; this one creeps more than it walks. Hovering synths, flickering guitars are creating a twisted beauty while at times it almost tips into paranoia, but keeps pulling you back with its strange, hypnotic rhythm. Eventually, the album closes with “Lotus”, a riffed-out heavy and stomping track. It’s the most ritualistic track on the record, it feels ancient and futuristic at once. Somewhere near the end, some Eastern-psych vibe starts bleeding through, and it all starts to feel like a cleansing. You’re not the same after this one… “In Between” isn’t just another trip – it’s a descent, a confrontation, a transmission from the edge of the void. Da Captain Trips push beyond the jam-band psych comfort zone into something far more ritualistic and unfiltered. There’s beauty here, but it’s cracked and flickering. Improvisation isn’t a gimmick, it’s the vehicle. It’s not clean, it’s not easy, but that’s the point… Grab it! TimeLord Michalis

ps Da Captain Trips are Riccardo Cavicchia (Guitars), Federico Chiappa (Bass), Tommaso Villa (Drums & Percussions), and Paolo “Apollo” Negri (Keyboards)