Perfect Timing
Artist: Sweet Comfort Band
URL: www.sweetcomfortband.com  www.bryanduncan.com 
Label: Retroactive Records
Length: Time: 11 tracks / 39:59

Sweet Comfort Band was both slightly ahead of its time and a product of its time, reflecting the currents of the day's musical trends, carving out a unique place in the history of Christian music, and setting a standard that few groups can match even today. The band's sixth album, 1984's Perfect Timing, was aptly named: they'd gone as far as they could go. Charismatic front-man Bryan Duncan was ready for a solo career and Randy Thomas would go on to join with Bob Carlisle to form the funk-filled rock power-band, Allies. Still, Sweet Comfort Band's demise left little comfort for the legion of fans that lost Christian Music's premier soul/power ballad/pop/rock powerhouse. Perfect Timing is once again available as a  remastered limited edition.

_Perfect Timing_ features all of the earmarks of a classic Sweet Comfort Band album, although with less emphasis on horns and more of an eighties rock sound. Duncan's blue-eyed soul vocals are there in all of their glory, as are Thomas' soaring guitar solos. Kevin Thomson turns in his usual fine job on bass and Rick Thomson delivers a fine drum performance, slightly hampered by the period tendency to combine electronic percussion sounds in the mix wherever possible - this is most notable on the album's only  track that really suffers from sounding dated - "Computer Age" - which also features that 'eighties' keyboard sound and is the only song featuring Thomas on lead vocals instead of Duncan. In this case, Duncan is probably feeling pretty good about that....

As an indication of where Duncan was going, the penultimate track is the impressive ballad, "Prodigal's Regret (Never Should Have Left You)," which is the kind of powerful, confessional writing and performance that would characterize much of his work in the years that followed. 

"Neighborhood Kids," the album's last song, is an ambitiously progressive jazz/pop effort that shows Sweet Comfort Band in a more socially-conscious mode. The song is refreshingly devoid of any eighties trendiness, has a wonderful sound, and shows the band at its fullest musical potential - seemingly, a perfect jumping-off point for the next step in their musical evolution. ...but timing, being what it is, said otherwise. 

The album is produced by Dino Elephante and features ex-Kansas vocalist John Elephante singing back-up and adding to the generally bigger production sound that characterized the Elephante production style.

Unquestionably one of the finest, most accomplished bands of its day, Sweet Comfort Band capped off their history with a fine album of well-crafted songs featuring fine musicianship, state of the art production, and typically impressive cover art. Not a bad way at all to put the lid on your legacy.

This, like most SCB albums, needs to be part of the collection of any serious collector of Christian Music.

Bert Saraco
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