//------------------------------//
// Classic Review 
// Story: A Lost Crystal Gem - The Story of Sunset and how she became Spinel 
// by ratedoni 
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Two nondescript walls in the back of the video show one thing on each. First, something is hanging on the wall of the left and it shows a music album hanging thanks to the magic of the green screen, showing a space painting with a bullet train traversing the alien terrain at high speed. In the other wall you can see an album collection with one particular album being used as highlight. The album shows a huge woman being made out of light as two small figures look up at her from the ground.

In front of the two walls there is a man with short hair and black thick rimmed glasses grinning at the camera “Hey everyone, Rockthony Spacetano here, the internet’s busiest music nerd and is time for a classic review of the Sunlight in Space album, Last Station before Midnight.

Sunlight in Space, are Multi-instrumentalists, producers, singers and song-writers and legendary rock duet from the east coast; the duet consisting of Greg Universe and Spinel, known for their very theatrical and instrumentally rich albums through the years, due to Greg Universe and  Spinel’s guitar riffs and lyrics writing. 

The band came to be known once then self-named ‘Mr. Universe’ parted ways with his manager at the time. Almost immediately he hooked up with the woman known as Spinel and they released their first single hit ‘Star Child’, which was then followed by the full album ‘The First Flight of Mr. Universe’, which was definitely a way better debut than the hilariously bad ‘Let me Drive my Van into your Heart’,” is that this point that the man tries to valiantly fight back a full on laughter, but he finally loses and the scene is cut down before continuing as if nothing had happened.

“Since the moment the band began to record together they showed great chemistry and it is clear from the sound of ‘The First Flight of Mr. Universe’ which shows a very smooth, rich instrumentation layered around some really good songwriting. The band has experimented with many genres like rock, R&B, funk, electronic and even some punk and through all of that they have encapsulated all this music with a feeling of space and stars, which yes, it is quite the gimmick of the band has considering the stories they tell on their albums.

And that is the case with this particular one; their fourth long play album, ‘Last Station before Midnight’ is the following album after their very successful ‘Atlas and the Company that Sold the World’,” The album hanging in the wall changes to show the cover of that particular LP, with a little girl on red graffiting a green dollar sign on a wall “which already played with some of the ideas that they brought into their next album, such as the moody, haunting sound of the guitars; the experimentation with the synthesizers which were very predominant at the era, just look at some of the songs that were very popular by the time this album was released. But what truly call the attention with the synths in this album are the long drawn sounds that they bring from them which only adds to the other-wordly sound of the album, making you think that you indeed are traveling through this lonely and haunting place.

So the album begins with the duo retaking the character of Mr. Universe, a bright eyed, egotistical rascal that is now being tortured and haunted by the memories of his time spent on the planet he has just left right by the time the revolution exploded at the last album. The intro song, ‘First class’, shows Mr. universe stepping into the train that appeared out of nowhere, a train that is taking him from the nightmares of the revolution from the world at his back, you can even hear the fires from the end of the Atlas album. It is a very gritty, dark, almost depressive with lines like: ‘I never thought life could become glass under the fires’.

On ‘Shows of Freedom’, a very funky, sexy song with a great sax at the back of the song, tells the tale of a man that felt in love with a model that he saw on an ad, but by the end of the track it is shown that it is only a story that Mr. Universe made on his mind after watching a skeleton dressed on formal wear; it is then shown on the next track, ‘Motor Running’, that Mr. Universe is the last one alive on the train, and the train is moving by itself, all accompanied by a very creamy, dreamy bass on the hands of Spinel alongside probably the smoothest voice performance by Greg Universe at the moment.

The next two songs, ‘Rose Dream’ and ‘Lady of Stars’, follow this funky and melodic ballad style with some very tight drum beats and crisp guitar before plunging into ‘Mount Eary’ and it retakes the theatrical, grandiose instrumentation and the story telling of the album, with haunting guitar riffs and both singers taking the role of both Mr. Universe and an ethereal voice from space.

The song ‘Blink and you Miss’ opens up with this one note keyboard key much in the same style of ‘Flash’ by Queen, giving the whole song a very sci-fi feeling with the help of synthesizers. The album shows a lot of the duet’s ideas about music and writing with a lot of harmonization, crescendos, tight crisp guitar leads, like in the song ‘Milky Way is that Way’ and what can almost pass as a combination of Glam Rock and Power Metal in ‘Captain Solo was Alone’ and ‘Liberties Taken’ in which at the end of the last one, the song turns right back into the gritty, moody and heavy bass line in which Spinel sings about lost love and a world that is closed to her, almost as if she was reminiscing about her life and the way she was banished from it, something that gets retaken at the end of the album in which the train finally reaches a new haven among the stars, right on top of a giant statue’s hand.

Is with this album that many of the key elements in their future projects, just like the dreamy sound of synths, the sharp, melodic ballads and that feeling of other worldliness that is a personal touch to their music.

Without a doubt this is a record that many should hear, with top notch production, over flowing talent on song writing and fantastic instrumentation coming from only two people. If you got the chance take a listen to it and the other records that these duo did together” with the video is over and you can now surf the internet free.