TURN OF THE TIDES

I remember to actually have had a lot of expectations about this album, but the very first impression was controversial. Opening with a recording of Picture at an Exhibition with just some noise over it, seems like wasting 3 minutes. TD are actually a father and son affair: Edgar and Jerome Froese with a number of guests throughout the album. At the beginning of the 90s I was listening to some newage, and I was surprised to see a sample from this album in a newage compilation, but the second track, "Firetongues" justifies it. It's a newage track with a familiar keyboard sound backing a good spanish guitar. Not bad, but you have to like newage at least a bit to enjoy it. As in some previous albums, the sound, especially the electric guitar when present, reinds to the albums released by Peter Bardens in the same period. Firetoungues could stay on Peter's "Speed Of Light". Nothing bad, anyway.

More promising, "Galley Slave's Horizon" starts somewhere near late Floyd and Genesis. It's again a probably "midi" guitar effort. It's again borderline with the newage realm, but the presence of minor chords makes it a little more progressive also because the musical theme changes several times during its about 8 minutes.

"Death Of a Nightingale" doesn't move the focus a lot, but I hear some celtic influence at least in the first notes. In any case, if I had to classify this track, this is exactly how newage was sounding in the 90s. Decent, but nothing special.

Usually, with more available time TD were able to do their best. "Twilight Brigade" is the longest album track even if it doesn't reach 10 minutes. After an intro not too different from the other tracks, it slows down and in my opinion this is the best part of the album. Without changingthe album's general mood, it has something more than the other tracks. It's more consistent from a compositional point of view.

"Twilight Brigade" starts like a spaghetti-western soundtrack before turning into something that could have been released by Alan Parsons. Luckily TD didn't insist with that "western" stuff and reained occidentals

"Midwinter Night" is too solar for its title. Just another melodic newage effort which doesn't add anything to what already written.

Finally: the title track which has a rhythm resembling of the 70s disco music. It's quite funky, and this is underlined by the "slaps" on bass. I don't think anybody would try to dance on it, even with a sort of brass section in the middle. Guitar riffs show some rock skill. Very similar in the mood to David Gilmour's "Blue Light", but only from "long distanSo not bad at all. Good for background music if you need to relax, I think I'll try how I feel with it when I'm driving my car. In terms of PA stars it's a typical 3-stars album: good but non essential.