Recorded during 1998 and 1999, Before, During and After is so titled for the range of material included on the disc -- songs dating back, indeed, to long before Jim Milne and Steve Clayton signed with the Dandelion label in 1971, and on to what were then their most recent recordings. It's a lovely album, redolent of the age in which Tractor first flourished, but never once feeling dated or awkward. Indeed, while "Bravado" could easily be a late-period Traffic number, "Jester" puts one in mind of a more pastoral Hawkwind, fronted by Ozzy Osbourne, as Milne unleashes the same vocal efforts that characterized the debut album's "King Dick II". The excellently titled "Circuits Drawn on a Cigarette Packet", meanwhile, drifts by on a magnificently mantric chorus, while "Steve's Hungarian Novel" is an apparent improvisation, titled for (but not included on) a now rare Tractor double-album compilation, released elsewhere in the late '90s. Dave Thompson, Rovi