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Spock's Beard - Day For Night

Artist:	Spock's Beard
Title:	Day For Night
Label:	Inside Out IOMCD 034
Length(s):	68 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1999
Month of review:	02/1999

Line up

I guess the same as one The Kindness Of Strangers, which was:
Neal Morse - vocals, piano, synths, acoustic and some electric guitar
Alan Morse - electric guitar, cello, mellotron, vocals
Dave Meros - bass, vocals
Ryo Okumoto - hammond, mellotron
Nick D'Virgilio - drums, percussion, vocals

Tracks

1)	Day For Night	7.34
2)	Gibberish	4.18
3)	Skin	3.58
4)	The Distance To The Sun	5.11
5)	Crack The Big Sky	9.59
6)	The Gypsy	7.28
7)	Can't Get It Wrong	4.12
8)	The Healing Colours Of Sound (part 1)	2.22
9)	My Shoes	4.16
10)	Mommy Comes Back	4.50
11)	Lay It Down	3.18
12)	The Healing Colours Of Sound (part 2)	3.17
13)	My Shoes (revisited)	3.53
14)	?? (bonus)
15)	Hurt (bonus)	3.08

Try a sample of the album in MP3 or RealAudio

Summary

One of the nice things of Inside Out is that they release quite a number of interesting bands, among which we can now also reckon Spock's Beard (previous albums were on GEP). One of not so nice things about Inside Out is the fact that no booklet was sent along with the CD, so I cannot really tell you anything definite about the line-up, who plays what or what the lyrics are about. Too bad. Okay, to SB now. It was rather a surprise since I hadn't even heard they were working on a new one. But here it is: the longest yet and with by far the largest number of tracks. There were 18 on the first three discs and now 14 new ones. It seems the reactions to the new Spock's Beard are mixed. Trying to go about it in the most obejctive of ways, I found the following:

The music

the first track is the title track and make no mistake about it: this definitely the Spock;'s Beard we all know. Heavy organ, somewhat quiet vocal parts and all the typical themes and ways of Spocks Beard. Gibberish seems to be the continuation of Thoughts with plenty of different vocal melodies intertwined. One does get the impression that much of what you hear, you've heard before, but it seems that is just the way the band is. Skin is a rather short track and very catchy. The verses are not striking, but the song works because of the jubilant chorus. Short songs are okay in my book as long as the idea is good and in this case the chorus is good enough for me. Also nice how the guitar goes left and right in your ears. The Distance To The Sun opens as a ballad, not sounding like June directly, but it does have the sweetness. Still it is weaker than June coming closer to that dividing line. Crack In The Big Sky is with just under 10 minutes the longest track on the album. A catchy vocal melody and also one those great themes (as in Harms Way) played on guitar. Plenty of variation with a strong organ sound alternated with a more groovy vocal part and even some saxophone and ending with seagulls. In the Gypsy the gulls seem to return somewhat. For the rest this is a rather bouncy track with all the typical ingredients, but also a heavy bass, quick guitarriffs and something akin to a sitar. A large number of different runs are alternately played, making for a cauldron of impressions, a song that just can't sit still. Can't Get It Wrong is a ballad. The vocals sound a bit flat at times, as if the singer feels a bit dreary. Still, it's a nice song, though a bit melodramatic. The Healing Colours Of Sound is more in the old-style. This is only the short part one: cello-like sounds, freaking on the keyboards and then acoustic guitar. My Shoes is one of the more accessible tracks, but Mommy Comes Back is somewhat different: a crying guitar and plenty of weird noises and a heavy bass. Not one of the best ones, it doesn't really flow and it's just a little too rocky for me. Lay It Down is a softer track, a bit percussive, but in a subtle one as well. One might be reminded of Peter Gabriel here. On the whole it seems the songs later on the album make less impression than the earlier ones. After the singalong conclusion of The Healing Colours Of Sound we revisit The Shoes. I was just thinking that they could have called song 8 through 13 one single song, with all these recurrent parts and nobody would have questioned them. The guitaristic Shoes revisited is also the closer of the album per se' (and comparable to the closing of The Kindness Of Strangers), but unfortunately their is a rather lousy bonustrack called Hurt (two actually, but I'm not sure whether one can call the first a "track"). Hurt is just plain rock and not very good rock at that.

Conclusion

An album that starts out well, but that tends to sink in towards the end. I mean most themes are okay, but it seems as if the music later on the album did not have the time to crystallize the way it should. I like this one less than Kindness Of Strangers, but as you can check I also thought this about that album compared to its predecessor. Now however I rate them as high, yet I find them very distinctive. Although the music may seem more accessible -- and I think it is not, just a little more in the song format -- at the end it becomes hard to see the wood for the trees. The Kindness Of Strangers may be a better album, the goosebumps of Harms Way I may not have felt, but as far as albums go, this is still a good one.