IMAGES AT TWILIGHT

After the great debut, Saga released the disappointing follow-up, Images At Twilight. While the debut featured most of the band's trademarks and their distinctive sound, this second album seems like a step backwards. Or rather, a step away; a step away from (Prog) Rock and towards Disco and funky Pop. The sound is even more thin than on the debut and production is glossy and plastic. While on the debut there was hardly any weak songs, the relation is reversed this time around; there are only one or two good songs here among the mediocre and even downright awful ones. Only a couple of the tracks retain the progressive structures of the debut and the songs are generally shorter and simpler, there is more emphasis on catchy choruses. There are also some really cheesy moments on this album and some horrible Disco-infected songs.

The best track here is easily the first chapter of "the chapters"-saga: the very good Images, which starts with a really nice piano introduction and a strong vocal. Saga's first four albums all had tracks subtitled 'Chapter #'. These chapters appeared in non-numerical order, scattered on these early albums and while the debut confusingly included chapters four and six, this second album features chapters one and three! It was always unclear to me what these songs are supposed to have in common or why they are supposed to hang together in the order indicated by the chapter numbers - as far as I can tell they are not really musically connected. Even more interestingly, Saga once again picked up this tradition in 1999 on the appropriately titled Full Circle album and they continued on the albums House Of Cards and Marathon adding up to a further eight chapters of the saga. In 2005, they released a live album featuring all of the 16 chapters in numerical running order.

Despite one or two good moments, Images At Twilight was clearly a letdown after the promising self-titled debut. Thankfully, Saga would bounce back with their third album.

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