Day for Night1999 saw the release of the band's 4th studio album,
Day for Night. Reviews have always been pretty mixed on this, and I am usually on the side of those who call it one of the band's weaker efforts - it's definitely the least best of the Neal era and their 2nd or 3rd least best overall - but I still like it a lot.
The title track, which kicks off the album, gets us off to a great start, with that fantastic intro and a song featuring some really catchy vocal melodies. This is a song that is very hard to not sing along to.
Unfortunately, things take a mediocre turn pretty quickly with the next two songs. "Gibberish" is just that: pure gibberish. Pretty crappy song, featuring a multi-part harmony that is mostly really annoying, and the music sounds pretty rehashed and boring (it borrows from one of their own songs, "In the Mouth of Madness"). This is in my bottom 3 Spock's Beard songs. "Skin" isn't awful so much that it is really bland. It's like it tried to be catchy in there, but missed the mark. The band sounds bored out of their minds in this song.
Things get back on track a little bit with "Distance to the Sun," a nice little acoustic number, featuring some great harmonies between Neal and NDV. This isn't one of their better slower tunes, but it's a nice, enjoyable one.
"Crack the Big Sky" is next, and this song is where the album gets great. This is a longtime favorite of mine. Very proggy song, with an intro that ends with a section that always make you want to clap along. Very nice dynamics throughout in this song, with some wonderful mellow moments and some great rocking sections. Great use of the saxophone in the second half of this song. Fantastic tune.
"The Gypsy" was my instant favorite from this record originally, and while I am not sure I would now give it the edge over the previous track on the album, I still love it. This song is their Beard rocking their balls off!
David Meros' bass work in this one is off the charts, Neal gives us another catchy as hell vocal melody to sing along to, and Okumoto's work on the mellotron is absolutely perfect.
The next one was one co-written with Alan Morse and NDV, which you would have thought would have given us something new and cool, but instead it gave us a piece of crap, syrupy tune like "Can't Get It Wrong," which is comfortably the worst song the band has ever released on a studio album. It's just awful.
The album ends with the 7-part suite known as "The Healing Colors of Sound." Overall, it's a really good piece of music, although I think it could have been condensed a little bit. Had the suite ended with Part 2 of the "The Healing Colors," I think it would have came off better, instead of having what seems like the unnecessary "My Shoes (Revisited)" reprise, following that ear-grinding static noise in "Urban Noise." That aside, this songs shows off the quirky nature of the band, especially in "Mommy Comes Back," which is infectiously fabulous. And "Lay It Down" is a good example of a killer vibe, and a great lead-up to the vocal reprise of the "Healing Colors" theme, which was all instrumental in Part 1. Individually, "Lay It Down" is one of my favorite songs on this entire record. The suite as a whole is really good, but I can't call it great. I think this is where Neal started to get a little too reprise-happy at times when writing long songs/suites.
Overall, this is a good album. It has some clunkers, a couple of great tunes, and then a few songs that are really good. It's not even close to being one of their best, but it's still one worth having if you are a fan.