Night are capable players but not exciting, capable writers but not exciting and this album is not exciting but capably done.

"Attention fans of Rock, this album contains nine tracks filled with electrifying Rock music that will satisfy all your needs" or so the band suggest in their press release. I believe I'll be the judge of that and I will not be a sympathetic judge.

If you like NWOBHM but in German, so NWOGHM, then this may actually be your cup of tea or Weissbier. This album is retro to the max, Night are seriously channelling their inner Diamond Head and early Iron Maiden, unfortunately, they don't seem to have the youthful grit and determination that the founders of NWOBHM had. This is Retro German Heavy Rock and I'm sure somewhere, to some people, this album makes sense, but for me this does nothing.

The vocalist sings about three melodies throughout the album, repeating the same formula over and over until the whole album blends into one, and the guitars do intro solos on nearly every song which is mind numbing. I get the "if it ain't broke then don't fix it" mentality, that's fine for bands like AC/DC who can peddle the same feel of track because they have a vocalist who can swap out melodies, but Night are not blessed with this so they repeat a formula and it just doesn't seem to go anywhere, just pedalling the same thing until the listener zones out.

I have not heard too many albums that I literally can't remember I'm supposed to be listening to while I'm actually listening to it. My mind phased in and out of the work I was doing, in fact, I can remember more about what I was doing when I was listening to 'Raft Of The Night' for the first time than I did about the album.
Actually, this isn't a bad album, it's just very unmemorable, like magnolia paint, you know it's a colour on a wall but you tend to just look at it and not think about it. This is the audio version of magnolia.

If I had to be positive about this album then I would say it's only nine tracks long. Night are capable players but not exciting, capable writers but not exciting and this album is not exciting but capably done.

Tony Marshall