BEWARE OF DARKNESS

When following the fantastic development of early Spock's Beard, one could hardly ever dismiss their grandiose second album titled 'Beware of Darkness', the follow-up to the band's iconic debut album 'The Light'. Titled after a George Harrison song, the second studio LP from the Beard is a lovely collection of seven tracks that run for a little less than an hour of playtime, and these amazing compositions comprise all different corners of the band's universe. With Neal Morse at the top of his creative vision, ripe with grand ideas, the band also sees the recruitment of keyboard wizard Ryo Okumoto, handling some additional Hammond organs and Mellotron duties, all in a great celebration of the 90s retro prog revival.

Moving away from writing long pieces developed from Neal Morse ideas and cementing themselves as a band even further, Spock's Beard instead opted for a mixture of both longer and shorter songs, on an album that more than any other one in their catalogue displays the true identity of the American prog giants - beautiful and memorable melodies, intricate and often very playful vocal harmonies, a very prominent and upfront rhythm section, with great and sophisticated instrumental passages that are often inspired by 70s progressive rock, acoustic rock, or downright classical music, with all of these ingredients making up the fantastic sound of the band. Opening up the album with the fantastic title track, this is a song that Neal Morse saw as the prog version of the original, which he only famously heard whilst recording 'Beware of Darkness'. The lovely interplay between quirky and melodic passages is immediately discernible here, and this is enhanced by the introduction of the second track, the majestic 'Thoughts', part of a cross-album suite that extends to the solo work of Neal Morse. Featuring Kevin Gilbert as a producer on this track as well as two other ones, we have some interesting additional effects and influences on the album, which only elevates it more. Needless to say, the longer tracks on here as incredible as well, all three of them can be considered SB classics, featuring some of the band's most memorable riffs and melodies. Then there is 'Waste Away', which is quite energetic and hard-hitting as well as the instrumental 'Chatauqua', which certainly echoes something like 'Clap' from 'The Yes Album'.

The album is a definite improvement over 'The Light' in terms of songwriting and production, ripe with beautiful ideas and gorgeous melodies, we may often see this sometimes overlooked follow-up even as more important than its predecessor, excellent all throughout and above all, tremendously enjoyable.