SUNCHILD: Time And The Tide (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Coinciding with the release of Sunchild's new album ("Exotic Creatures and a Stolen Dream"), Antony Kalugin offers us a look back at four of the band's first six albums, remastered and grouped together in a boxed set entitled "Time and the Tide" and enhanced by 80 minutes of previously unreleased alternative, live or demo versions. Probably so as not to take too much money out of the pockets of fans who already own these albums, but are still keen to acquire all the band's publications, all these previously unreleased tracks are grouped together in a single digital album entitled... "Time and the Tide"!

As is often the case in this kind of exercise, the whole thing turns out to be a merry mishmash, with rather different styles from one track to the next, and production of varying quality. Over the course of the seventeen tracks, the listener will navigate between very catchy late '80s/early '90s English pop ('Synesthesia' or the chorus of 'The Fall') and instrumental passages sometimes bordering on the experimental ('Disconnected' or 'The Fall' and its long, bushman-like introduction to the sound of the didgireedoo) to a sober acoustic version of 'Lady of the Lake'.

This voyage into progressive lands also invites the listener to take to the skies, following in the footsteps of Quantum Fantay in its orientalized version throughout the magnificent instrumental version of 'Under the Wrap'. Mostly instrumental, the album lets the artist give free rein to his instrument of choice, without overusing it, except when he allows himself a solitary outing on keyboards ('The Last Hope', 'Disconnected').

While the novelty of these tracks and their diverse origins make them an ideal complement to such a large-scale compilation, stringing them together on the same album doesn't necessarily guarantee a coherence that will keep the listener on his toes. In this case, however, the exercise is a success, perhaps also because the whole covers a relatively short production period (six years).

For those unfamiliar with the original versions, "Time and the Tide" can be listened to as a work in its own right, and even if the overall quality is a tone below that of the band's last release, the modest price of these unreleased tracks will enable anyone to complete their collection. - Official website

SUNCHILD

TIME AND THE TIDE

AUTRE LABEL

PROGRESSIVE ROCK