Title: Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep
Artiste: Spock's Beard
Genre: Progressive Rock
Familiarity: Quite a lot; I've something of a love/hate (hah!) relationship with this band. When they're good, they're very very good, but they can wander into pointless noodle territory too often.
1. Hiding out: Good opener with some fine piano and synth. New singer is interesting though it's odd not listening to Nick D'Virgilio, or indeed hearing his drumming as this album features a new skinsman too. I'm a little disenchanted (hah!) to find that new singer Ted Leonard used to be with Enchant, a prog rock band who did not impress me even on the second time of asking. Still, maybe he was just in the wrong band? The rest of the boys are in fine form, with Alan Morse's guitar as smooth and fluid as ever, Ryo Okumoto's keys flawless and Dave Meros as usual keeps everything tight, so the core band is still there. However I find the usual problem persists: I find it hard to latch onto this song and will remember little of it once it's over. It's good, but it's not memorable.
2. I know your secret: On first listen this sounds so much like a Jadis song that I have to check to make sure I'm listening to the right band! Good uptempo one with great bass and some fine keys, but as it goes on it develops even into something more like It Bites... Yeah, I do like Spock's Beard but they often seem not to have their own identity, as here they seem to rip off at least two prog bands I know of, with some elements of later Genesis thrown in too. To be fair, the end section is nice and shows what they can do.
3. A treasure abandoned: This is a decent track. Again, there are too many obvious influences in it, but I suppose I should remember Spock's Beard have only been around since the 90s. Best of the lot so far though. Still, the end section is totally familiar and I'm sure they robbed it from someone, again I'm thinking It Bites off the
Tall ships album?
4. Submerged: Yes, I really like this one right from the off. Seems fairly original and the better for it. Great hook in the chorus.
5. Afterthoughts: Not mad about this one. It's okay but there's something slightly annoying about it, not sure what. Maybe the vocal harmonies?
6. Something very strange: I would say this is an instrumental, as we're three minutes in without vocals, but it is nine minutes almost and ... ah, there's the singing now. This is turning into a decent song, to be fair. Quite a lot of keyboard noodling though, which I'm not that fond of.
7. Waiting for me: Another thing thing SB do is long epic tracks, so it's no surprise that there's a twelve-minute closer. Still, I suppose I should be grateful it's not “The great nothing” (27 minutes) from
V or “The Water” (23 minutes) from
The Light. Both great songs on two good albums but they do go on for longer than is tolerable even for a diehard prog fan. This sounds like it could be a good one to end on though. Good to hear Neal Morse one more time as he plays guitar on this. He really channels Gilmour at times here, though to be fair full credit must be given to Okumoto for his keyboard acrobatics. Great guitar outro, very impressive.
End result: Again, a decent album from Spock's Beard, but there are flaws as I often find with this band. It's their tendency to imitate and derive from other well-known bands in the genre that makes it so dificult to appreciate them on their own merits. But a worthy effort certainly.
Note: Sorry I didn't listen to the extra disc, Chula. I know you probably would prefer I did, but I have so much to listen to and write, I simply couldn't spare the time.
So, Love or Hate? On balance and given that I know the band, it's good enough to rate a
Love sure.