{"id":36450,"date":"2000-01-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-01-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/day-from-night\/"},"modified":"2000-01-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2000-01-12T00:00:00","slug":"day-from-night","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/day-from-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Day From Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

We here at “The Daily Vault” pride ourselves on providing
\nmusical guidance for you, the listening public. But you know what?
\nWe can learn from the Internet too.<\/p>\n

So after a slew of recommendations on the
\nAlan Parsons mailing
\nlist<\/a>, I was in a local GargantuaRecordMart the other day with
\nsome winter holiday money and finally picked up
\nDay From Night<\/i>, the latest CD by LA-based progressive rock
\nband Spock’s Beard.<\/p>\n

My only question is, why in the hell did I wait so long?<\/p>\n

Spock’s Beard has the recommendations and the reputation,
\ncertainly.
\nFrontiers<\/i> Magazine named their
\nBeware Of Darkness<\/i> CD “Progressive Album Of The Decade”, and
\nmembers have played with Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Tears For
\nFears, and Genesis. But let’s face it – progressive rock and its
\nleather-clad brother progressive metal is one-quarter brilliant and
\nthree-quarters crap. For every Alan Parsons or Dream Theater,
\nthere’s plenty of self-indulgent performers who think that obscure
\nlyrics and a Hammond organ will make them the next Pink Floyd.<\/p>\n

Spock’s Beard, however, avoids the pitfalls inherent in the
\ngenre, and do it with a vengeance. This is
\ngreat<\/i>, great stuff, with punch and power and\u2026dare I
\nsay it?\u2026promise.<\/p>\n

The CD kicks off with “Day From Night”, a long, keyboard and
\nbass-laden track reminiscent of Kansas in their
\nLeftoverture<\/i> period. The track grew on me after several
\nlistenings, as did track two, “Gibberish”. Then\u2026<\/p>\n

Then we hit “Skin”. “Skin” is my pick for best
\nsong<\/i> I’ve heard on a 1999 CD release. The hook is
\nirresistable, the guitar and keyboards energetic and complex, and
\nNeal Morse’s vocals are strong enough to carry the song to its
\nbright and triumphant conclusion. Follow this with “The Distance To
\nThe Sun”, an acoustic ballad with brilliant harmonies, and you have
\na reviewer staring at the wall in stunned appreciation. In all
\nhonesty, I don’t recall responding to a first exposure to a band
\nthis strongly since the first time I heard October Project or Great
\nBig Sea.<\/p>\n

The rest of the CD is excellent, especially the
\nmodern-rock-tinged “The Gypsy”, “Crack The Big Sky”, and the softer
\n“Lay It Down”. Spock’s Beard gets special notice for avoiding the
\nmuddy fussiness of most progressive rock; their sound is clear and
\nclean with magnificent production, and their harmonies are
\nwell-defined, reminiscent of the aforementioned Parsons or Todd
\nRundgren’s work with Utopia.<\/p>\n

Progressive rock, power pop, or modern rock, Spock’s Beard fits
\nthe bill in spades.
\nDay For Night<\/i> is a magnificent piece of work. Cash that
\ncheck from your Aunt Hettie and
\n
\nget it<\/i>
\n<\/b> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":25245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6237],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-36450","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-spocks-beard","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36450"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36450"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}