Portrait
38873
1983
This guilty treasure of menacing AOR is MIA. But if you locate the arcane Lonely at Night prepare for details of drugs, agoraphobia, dementia, and God knows what strung over chiming wave keys and plastic hair guitar ‹ and that's just the titular opener, setting the tone for a tightly twisted journey through pedophilia playground propositions ("Hello"), hallucinogenic Halloween hymns ("Night Parade"), and pulsing panoramic paranoia ("What Kind of Love Is This"). Throughout, Lonely at Night maintains the same spooky sense as "Lunatic Fringe" by fellow Canadians Red Rider. Even when the musical and lyrical tension briefly lets up on the haunted ballad "Miracle," the lonely longing in the center of the record still tremors through lead singer Chris Burke's vexatious vocals. Blazing and blistering guitar pumps blood into "All Over the World" as well as keeping the obsessive love stories "She Told Me" and "Any Time at All" from disintegrating into Cure cast-offs. Clean, mainstream production (handclaps, chunky riffs) forces all the compositions into the light. Unfortunately, this aptly titled band disappeared back into the endless night of the 80's.
-STONE, Cheap Trash NYC
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