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Timelock - The Dawn

Artist:	Timelock
Title:	The Dawn
Label:	SI Music Simply 65
Length(s):	50 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1994
Month of review:	11/1994

Line up

Julian Driessen - keyboards
Bert de Bruijne - bass
Rinus Hollenberg - guitars
Ruud Stoker - vocals
Rob Louwers - drums

Tracks

1)	Emotional Target	5.03
2)	Between Dusk And Dawn	4.00
3)	Napoleon Bonaparte	8.17
4)	Hold On	6.38
5)	No Man's Land	4.43
6)	Imperceptible Journal	4.43
7)	Hungry Eyes	4.28
8)	Touchdown	4.24
9)	Comets Rising	5.20
10)	Icarus Before Noon	2.24

Summary

Other album: Louise Brooks, Simply 20 from 1992.

The music

As far as I know this is the only band in the SI stable that has 'regular' airplay on the national radio (Carola on Radio 3, she recently interviewed John Wetton live on radio including some acoustic playing by the man himself.). This might lead you reader to conclude one of two things: either they make commercial shit not in anyone's interest or they are top notch in the SI stable. I think neither and both. First of all, their music is neo so has to be on the commercial side of progressive rock, but it's not commercial compared to non-progressive efforts. On the other hand they certainly aren't the best band around in the SI stable, but they certainly aren't the least either.

The sound is heavy, maybe even hard rock, but this is mostly because the guitar work is quite heavy and the stadiumrock vocals and harmonies, but to a lesser extent than is usual. It's better to look at this band on their own merits: heavy symphonic rock, not overly complex but very much thought given to melodic content and the songstructure is prominent. The drumming and the riffs make the difference in drawing the line between this band and the more accessible AOR and rock music.

Although all the renditions have a certain freshness, some songs clearly do not make it in my opinion. The second song is a standard rock song and not very interesting. The third is better with enough tempo changes and even harmonies, all in all somewhere in between bands like Marathon or Threshold. Hold On sounds very familiar and is a very accessible ballad (a bit of Europe, a bit of Asia). The guitarwork in the fifth song is very reminiscent of U2, though some Dream Theater shines through. Imperceptible Journal (what a title) is an acoustic ballad (the other ballad is played on the piano, so we haven't had that yet), will Hungry Eyes has a good intro, but a bad chorus. This is also the problem with Touchdown IMO, and I believe this is the song that had airplay. It's very AORish and might attract some attention on the stations made available to that music in the States but not here. The last two songs (being in a sense connected) are the best songs with the first one. Both the structure and the melodies are fine as well as lyrical content. Between the two songs we have a spoken interlude taken from the film Quatermass and the Pit.

As a last remark I can say that the artwork is satisfying though not the best I've ever seen, not even on SI, but a lot better than November for instance.

Conclusion

Concludingly I'd say accessible music in the heavier vein, but sometimes a bit too obvious. Notable positive exceptions are 1, 9, 10 and maybe 6.