BEWARE OF DARKNESS

This happens to be my first album i ever bought from Spock's Beard which started my huge fan that i have for the Morse era of the Beard. Its weird i bought this alum and then i bought A KINDNESS OF STRANGERS and then i bought THE LIGHT i kinda wish i bought THE LIGHT first as there is so much change between each album. This album does feature a little bit of the silly lyrics that were featured on THE LIGHT but not too much in fact Neal Morse kinda developed a little bit of some maturity on this album. Plus the music kinda changed a bit as the beard were developing into their poppiness like they had in their later albums and its not quite as nutty as the music on THE LIGHT i mean i'm not saying THE LIGHT had bad music its just somewhat of a big change here on BEWARE OF DARKNESS. Anyway another change is that RYO OKUMUTO makes his grand debut on Mellotron and Hammond and what a fantastic debut he makes really spicing up the sound of Spock's Beard by having two keyboardist on board. Well the songs on this album are quite great as it starts off with the title track. To be quite honest i didn't even know this was a cover song not to mention a George Harrison cover song but hey that's cool as this is one of my favorite songs on this album with a great drum fill section by Nick and some nice solos by Alan and Ryo. Then comes the very proggy and very Gentle Giant inspried THOUGHTS i will admit i didn't enjoy this song at first but eventually it grew on me and its quite good and very complex the cool multiple vocal thingy really adds a nice touch in this song. THE DOORWAY ah what a great 11 minute epic it has so much beauty and progginess to keep the listener wanting more. The solo by Alan at the end is very rad as well then comes the short CHATAQUA which is nothing more but a nice acoustic instrumental. WALKING ON THE WIND is also very good as well Dave Meros just blows me away everytime i hear this in fact this whole album made me a big fan of his in my opinion he is the CHRIS SQUIRE of 90s prog rock. Then come WASTE AWAY which is okay kinda commercial but Neal has a cool chanting thing going on at the end of the song. Then comes the great epic TIME HAS COME now i will admit this song made me nervous in some parts but in due time it really has grown on me as well. i will admit though it really isn't my favorite long spock's beard epic like AT THE END OF THE DAY, FLOW, THE GREAT NOTHING. however NICK D'VIRGILO gah what can't this guy not do his drum solo ROCKS MY SOCKS OFF. So anyway a very fine album by the guys of the beard full of great melodic hooks and excellent proggy-ness to some songs a fine album if you are a fan of the beard.