Review Summary: Effortlessly drifting from fusion to prog, Sudden Dusk avoids common pitfalls of sounding too precious or too quirky and instead provides a whole range of great songs and moods.
American prog missed the wave of popularity that the British scene had, and was generally imitative of those bands
Starcastle aped
Yes, Cathedral aped
Genesis, and so on). In spite of being derivative, decent efforts popped up, but Sudden Dusk by the virtually unknown East Coast band However not only succeeds in providing a strong and well rounded prog effort, it also avoids sounding as unoriginal as other US efforts. Closest to maybe
Happy The Man with its wider variety of instruments like saxophone, However nevertheless manage to give the album a unique identity.
The variety present is pretty astounding, going from lurching, murkier prog on
In The Aisles to the eclectic fusion of the superb
Lamplight. The former even spirals into a chaotic guitar solo most reminiscent of
Primus, but it successfully transitions into the far gentler
Louise Sitting in a Chair, an album highlight with soft saxophone parts and subtly hooky piano lines. Each track has an extremely distinct identity, with several purely instrumental tracks and significantly different feels across songs like
It's Good Fun,
Beese and
Trees In The Forest in spite of similar instrumentation and licks thrown in. Seemingly moving from something like
King Crimson's Discipline one moment to
Gentle Giant the next, Sudden Dusk is excellently varied.
The one real constant is the excellent musicianship, which is dynamic enough to really give each track life. The drumming and bass work in particular gives a lot of drive and power to the more traditionally proggy songs like It's Good Fun, and with the variety from beautiful and serene moments to the frenzied lumbering of In The Aisles and the title track, the whole album feels both energetic and dynamic. Aside from a weaker vocal performance and the short length of tracks like
Hardt and Lamplight, Sudden Dusk manages to be strong on every front, and is certainly one of the hidden gems of prog.
