IMAGES AT TWILIGHT

Released in 1979, Saga's 2nd album "Images at Twilight" is usually considered the weaker of the band's first trilogy of albums. Being a new band, they were still looking for their new sound, wanting to incorporate some progressive aspects, but finding themselves coming into an era of change in the music business. One of the things I admire about the band during this time, is that they tried to stay close to their roots while also trying to fit in to the new sound that was emerging with synth heavy music. Well, they did quite well here, but you can tell for the most part, that the synth parts in this album don't seem quite as mature as they would by the time they released their breakthrough album "Worlds Apart" a few years later.

Another impressive thing about Saga is the 3 person core of the band that has, for the most part, stuck together through the years: Michael Sadler on the vocals and who also is more active on the synths for this album, Ian Crichton on guitars and Jim Crichton on bass (and bass synth on this album). Steve Negus on drums and percussion also remains from the debut album and would be with the band for a total of 26 years. At this point, newcomer Greg Chadd is responsible for most of the keyboards and synths, and, as evidenced in this album, his synth style is not the signature style that Saga is known for, but is more straightforward. His sound may have seemed to be a good fit for this new sound that was coming out, but it wasn't the sound that would put the band over the top. Chadd would also not appear on any other album as he would be replaced by Jim Gilmour, the keyboardist that ended up being another staple of the band and, except for a brief time, would remain with the band until present day.

So, as far as the signature sound of Saga, the sound that would make them famous, "Images at Twilight" doesn't quite give you that satisfaction that the band would become famous for. The synths are just too typical, however, the guitar is quickly moving towards that sound. This is very evident in the tracks "You're Not Alone" and "Hot to Cold", and listeners will hear a foreshadowing of their breakout album "Worlds Apart" in these tracks, as long as you close your ears to the plain sounding synths.

However, the synths are not too terrible here, just not what you expect. The bright and cheery sound of the heavy synths in "It's Time (Chapter Three)" actually work well for the track as well as "Images (Chapter One)" and "Mouse in a Maze". However, where it lacks is in the weaker tracks which really tends to drag the album down further than they should; "See Them Smile", "Slow Motion" and "Take It or Leave It". These three tracks have no progressiveness to them and sound like they could have easily come from the 80's. They are, thank goodness, shorter songs, but they are also way too radio friendly and uninteresting. The stronger songs "You're Not Alone" and "Hot to Cold" should easily make up for the weaker songs, and the others are good enough to not influence the album in a bad way ("Mouse in a Maze" and both of the Chapter tracks). Even so, the progressive aspect of the album is a bit weaker here, though not missing altogether. Those weak tracks are just almost unbearable and bring down the total rating more than they should.

I could easily rate this at a 3.5 star album, not as bad as their worst, a bit better than mediocre, but not necessarily excellent and far from essential. In the end, I have to round it down to 3 stars, but I wouldn't necessarily avoid this one as it is still pretty good for the most part. It's not one that I would enter the Saga realm with though. Better than good, but not quite great either. Get it for the Chapter tracks and the other 2 strong tracks.