THE DAWN OF TIME

Although this album appeared before "From Dusk till Dawn", the material is actually more recent. The style is more or less neo prog, reminding me alot of IQ in the sense that they often go for a long drawn out yet overly rushed and big sound at the expense of subtlety and melody, with the resulting lack of memorability. This is especially evident on the first three tracks, even if "Threads of Reality" displays a few appealing Middle Eastern brush strokes, but the tendency does permeate most of the album.

The shortest track is basically a decent classically inspired piano solo, "Ulysses Rollercoaster", and it effectively separates the mediocre from the decent material. Apart from the general neo and, by extension, Genesis influence, I also hear Shades of later Eloy, which is not a bad thing in my opinion. The four part instrumental which follows features more concise themes especially on synths in the later stages. "Plenty of Gold" begins with crickets and then becomes a stately slower paced spacey ballad. Even if it does drag a bit in the middle, the changes of pace are a welcome contrast to what came before. Klein's vocals are somewhat higher registered a la Frank Bornemann meets Jon Anderson, but they generally get the job done. "Sometimes" is even better, with an elegant memory first conveyed in wordless vocalizations then idealistic lyrics about the state of the world, featuring some heartfelt harmonies.

Apart from the aforementioned weaknesses typical of much neo, my big problem with the album is that it sounds less interesting each time I hear it, for which I dock a half star. The band has a lot of good ideas but needs to live up to its name by producing more "shades" that reflect the beauty of the dawn light.