THE FADING GHOSTS OF TWILIGHT

I have the luck of being a close friend of a guy who loves Prog and buys everything new he sees, and sells the albums he doesn't like very cheap, so when he offered me his recently bought copy of "The Fading Ghosts of Twilight" in 5 bucks, I grabbed it, despite I'm not a fan of THE FLOWER KINGS or UNIFAUN.

My first impression was that the band lacks of personality, but the ideas and sound are far above average, also liked the vocals that sounded like a combination of Pete Gabriel, Phil Collins, Fish and Matthew Parmenter, plus the excellent keyboards by Biggo Zelfries, his approach to the mini-moog and Mellotron is simply impressive as we all know.

The album starts with an excellent song, "The Fading Ghosts of Twilight" it has everything you can expect from a title track, the dramatic keyboards and mysterious vocals combine perfectly, even when the changes are not as radical as I expected from musicians of his level, the structure is quite interesting, the drumming is simply fantastic, a smile could be seen in my face while listing the good opener.

"The Unwanted Brother" is less impressive, the sound is excessively reminiscent of MARILLION, the power explosions of Roine in the guitar are probably what I liked more, too repetitive for my taste.

"Afternoon Skies" makes me think in "A Trick of the Tail", not that is too similar, but has that friendly and warm atmosphere that defined Collins GENESIS debut, the acoustic guitar played in an atmosphere style is pretty nice, not a masterpiece but good enough.

"Heroes & Beacons" is an interesting mini epic, starts soft and melancholic, flowing gently somehow in a transitional style between ATOTT and W&W, but about the third minute the interesting sections start, good interplay between Roine's guitar and Biggo that lead to a new soft passage, and again to an explosive section, following with this changes until the end of the song, again a highlight of the album.

"Jesus in the Barricades" sounds more like three men era GENESIS, if it wasn't for the excellent piano and Mellor would be a good moment to press the skip button, something I recommend to do when you reach "Waiting for the Sun", a track that bored me from the first to the last note.

"A Different Sun" has a very promising start with a great instrumental interplay, but sadly is only a mirage, the vocal section is just boring and uninspired, seems the band is unable to find a defined personality. becoming predictable and boring by moments.

Well. at least in "Ready to fly".the vocals are different, Stolt's voice is a good change, not that Nad sounds bad, but the mood was excessively similar in every track, good change, sadly the good moments are not too long, "People Like Us" is another good moment to press the skip button, sounds like a bunch of GENESIS clones playing some sort of soft Motown, very disappointing.

"A Soldier's Tale" is a hit and miss track, some brilliant moments and others that can only be describe as anodyne, again the instrumental passages in which Roine and Biggo dare to interplay are the ones that save the song.

"Bomb Inside Her Heart" is a good change, he acoustic feeling and jazzy drumming with some Flamenco overtones are very pleasant, which leads us to "Mercy & Mercury", along with the opener the best material AGENTS OF MERCY have recorded, a bright, powerful and imaginative song, strong from star to end.

Never before today I been so afraid to rate an album, because when I'm before a good or bad album, I have no problem to rate it, being that my hands don't shake when I have to give one or five stars, but "The Fading Ghosts of Twilight" is a real problem, sounds brilliant for moments and completely lack of personality on others, all the musicians are extremely talented, but their work as a team is just average, so I will have to go with 3 stars that would be 2.5 if the system of Prog Archives would allow it..