Warthur The Neal Morse Band ride again on this fourth studio album. Having spent a while in concept album land with their two releases (The Similitude of a Dream and The Great Adventure), this finds them enjoying the freedom to just cook up a brace of great songs and not worry too much about conceptual structure.

The two concept albums saw the songwriting pendulum creep somewhat more towards Neal Morse, and indeed between The Great Adventure and this the band put out Sola Gratia, a concept album under Neal's own name rather than under the Neal Morse Band flag, because that was entirely written by Neal and the band were just there to enact his vision. By contrast, there seems to have been an attempt here to correct that balance - Neal deliberately didn't turn up without any demos of his own, so as to give more space for the other band members' ideas after they'd indulged him with that piece and the two John Bunyan concept albums (the latter of which had been largely demoed by Neal before the band got involved). Indeed, a chunk in the middle of Not Afraid (Part 2) is improvised on the spot!

Between these two factors, then, one might expect the album to be a bit broader in stylistic range and something of a sonic depature, and you get exactly that here. The group have always shared vocal duties, but it feels like they go out of their way here to bring that diversity of voices to the fore, making this a real breath of fresh air. It's clearly a departure from the conceptually structured John Bunyan duology, where Neal ended up exerting a lot of influence over the "big picture" structure of the compositions even though the band all contributed ideas, but because other band members brought their demos to the table their material has the chance to get a bit more polish than the ideas on The Grand Experiment (where *nobody* brought demos and the whole point was to see if they could create an album working together right there in the studio).

There's only two real exceptions to this very democratic working approach. Emergence is a short piece composed by Neal alone, knocked out at a time when the band were contemplating taking the Fragile approach and including solo numbers from each member, whilst there's also a cover of Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, which is a nice fit for Neal and the group's obvious appreciation of the sunny 1960s sounds which fed into the early prog scene.

It's also, perhaps, the clue to where the band are coming from this time - for their approach to covering the material owes a fair amount to Yes's cover of America, and between that and toying with the idea of basing the album's structure on Fragile, this album feels a little like a Neal Morse Band take on Yes - not in terms of blandly imitating Yes's classic style (though there's obviously influence which can be detected here and there), but recapturing that sunny, optimistic, ethereal atmosphere which permeates the best Yes material. (Even the album title might hint to this - "Innocence" and "Danger" being two qualities which might go with the idea of being "Fragile"...)

I don't think it quite holds together as well as prior Neil Morse Band albums - in particular, I think the conclusion to Beyond the Years drags on too long - but it's still a very enjoyable prog album, and one which leaves me interested to see what they do next.

Warthur The first Neal Morse Band album was a departure from Neal's usual writing process, because he and the band went into the studio with nothing prepared whatsoever, a situation which demanded that everyone step up to the plate and offer creative contributions - a real shift from Neal's previous approach in his solo career (and during his leadership of Spock's Beard), which entailed writing almost all the material himself.

The second album, The Similitude of a Dream, saw Neal working out a concept and broad structure for the album, and then the band as a whole worked out on fleshing out those bones. This was refreshing in its own right, because it was still a very band-oriented process, but at the same time ensured that there was more overarching structure than on The Grand Experiment.

For this sequel to The Similitude of a Dream, Neal seems to have gone back to his old way of working - presenting the band with some two and a half hours of demos for the concept. These would then be workshopped rigorously; the final album weighs in at about 100 minutes, meaning a fair amount had to be cut. Neal's acknowledged that these cuts were sometimes painful, with everyone involved needing to lose bits they loved, but the end result is a release which is broadly in line with the general approach of Neal's earlier solo career (at least in terms of the prog albums), but has been subjected to sufficiently ruthless editing to keep things tight.

I think the later stretches album are a bit stronger musically than the earliest, which are a little too "business as usual" for Neal, but on further reflection I actually think that sneakily a somewhat neat structure which suits the concept - the album starts out in Neal's comfort zone and then he and the band go out into the hinterlands as things progress.

As far as the concept goes, as mentioned it's a sequel to The Similitude of a Dream, which was based on The Pilgrim's Progress. It's not a spurious, tacked-on sequel, mind; Bunyan's original novel consists of two parts, the titular Pilgrim's journey, and then the journey of the family he left behind to join him in the wonderful realm he's discovered. For the first album, Neal and the Band just dealt with the first part - which meant the second part was ripe for exploration on this album, as a sort of companion piece to the first.

This was an instance where Neal had to persuade the band a little - initially he and the group had been satisfied with Similitude, and were happy to leave Bunyan there and move on to other things - but the end results are on a par with the preceding album, and just shows that having this tight band around him continues to do Neal Morse a world of good. Even though this was largely sprung on them as a fait accompli, you can still detect touches here and there which feel more reminiscent of Neal Morse Band work than Neal Morse solo work, as it were - fleeting moments which don't seem necessarily what Neal would have come up with by himself - but at the same time, the shift in approach means that when the three Neal Morse Band albums up to this point are considered, each has its unique and distinctive character and none of them seem superfluous or redundant.

Warthur The first Neal Morse Band album was a deliberate exercise in Neal Morse shifting gear from his usual approach to making albums. Don't have a plan, don't have anything pre-prepared, just go into the studio as a group and cook everything up collaboratively.

To my mind, it was a major success - and clearly enough people thought the same to make it worth giving the Neal Morse Band idea another shot. This time, however, things seem to have shifted a little, with Neal taking on a bit more of a "band leader" role - seeing how it's his name on the cover and all - whilst not totally abandoning the collaborative approach of the group.

In particular, The Similitude of a Dream is based on a concept decided by Neal (it's an adaptation of The Pilgrim's Progress), with lyrics all written by Neal, and in a format which was ultimately decided by Neal. (Reportedly, he and Mike Portnoy had a disagreement over whether it should be a 1CD or 2CD release - Mike favoured a shorter album to prevent the concept from wearing thin - and Neal eventually got his way.)

That isn't to say this is a reversion to the approach of Neal's solo albums, or the time he spent as leader of Spock's Beard - an era when he'd write more or less all the music and lyrics and everyone else was there to execute his vision and did only minimal songwriting of their own. Once again, the credit for the music goes to all the band members - and once again, you can hear that, with more nods to pastoral-era Genesis and Pink Floyd (for example) than is typical for Neal's usual writing approach, plus some even wilder stylistic curveballs (there's bits of Draw the Line which seem almost nu-metal influenced, in terms of having a hard, funky instrumental basis which you could imagine a nu-metal vocalist rapping over at points). All this is the the sort of thing which also felt novel and interesting on The Grand Experiment, and so seem likely to be the contribution of other band members.

The shift here, then, seems to be that Neal has taken on the responsibility for providing the broader structure and concept, whilst the band as a whole take that framework and put the meat on the bones. It's a change which makes a lot of sense; The Grand Experiment was successful, of course, but it's the sort of thing which can only really be truly novel once. Coming into the studio with at least an outlined concept to hand is the sort of thing which focuses the mind, and having that sort of focus saves the album from being a mere rehash of what came before.

Using The Pilgrim's Progress as a concept also makes a lot of sense in terms of Neal's wider career; although Neal seems to be more open than he was back in the 2000s to be involved in projects producing music which is secular, or at least not overtly and explicitly Christian, he does like to involve his religion in his art. One of the things which is genuinely good about the prog albums in his solo career is that he doesn't just restrict himself to the same very limited set of themes which more conventional Christian Rock artists tend to rag on about over and over again. He's aware that Christianity has a rich cultural history behind it, and he'll use that to do concept albums based on obscure parts of the Bible, or Church history, or - in this case - Christian allegorical fiction.

In addition, the whole "weird allegorical journey" thing which The Pilgrim's Progress is based on is, of course, exactly the sort of thing which has been the substance of a bunch of great prog concept albums of the past - The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis is exactly that concept, in particular. (For that matter, so's Spock's Beard's Snow...) Basing the album on the structure of the original story means that John Bunyan is, in effect, an additional collaborator - because in his lyrics Neal is interpreting Bunyan's characters and plot, rather than coming up with his own story from whole cloth.

The end result is something which is both different from what Neal Morse would have come up with adapting The Pilgrim's Progress all by himself and then just handing down the finished compositions to the band, and different from what the Neal Morse Band would have come up with just wandering into the studio with no fixed plan for a second time. As such, despite all the retro-prog influences on it, the album still seems fresh in the context of Neal's prog discography, and helps to continue the revitalisation of that side of his output which the Neal Morse Band represents.

Warthur Although Neal Morse did put out a couple of albums of singer-songwriter material before he left Spock's Beard, his solo career really kicked into high gear after he left that band, with Neal rapidly developing an extensive and very varied discography. Some albums were of avowedly Christian worship music; others were progressive rock that musically saw him further develop the direction he'd been working in towards the end of his Spock's Beard tenure, but lyrically focusing on avowedly Christian themes. Still other albums were of cover versions of favourite songs, or of poppy singer-songwriter material.

This can mean that albums under the "Neal Morse" name offer a bit of a minefield - that's not so, however, with "The Neal Morse Band". Debuting on The Grand Experiment, the group sits squarely in the prog realm, so you can be pretty sure of what you're getting so long as their name is on the label. One could be forgiven for wondering if this isn't just canny marketing on Neal's part - a scheme to better guide listeners to the parts of his discography they're likely to respond well to. That's not the case, though; as the title of The Grand Experiment implies, the Neal Morse Band isn't just a continuation of business as usual for Neal, but a shift in his approach.

After his surprise return to Transatlantic in 2009, Neal seemed to rediscover his love of working as part of a band: he joined a new project, Flying Colors, he guested with Spock's Beard, he started this project, in which he and the titular Band went into the studio with nothing prepared in advance, with the aim of producing an album in as collaborative a manner as possible. This was a big departure for Morse in terms of his working style - hence the album title - and with all five band members credited equally on all of the album's tracks, the goal of producing the album in a maximally collaborative manner seems to have been achieved.

It's hard to understate how big a shift that is, in terms of Morse's usual musical approach. On his previous prog solo albums, Neal was credited with writing more or less all the music and lyrics, and back when he was in Spock's Beard he was very much the band leader and did the lion's share of the writing there. It must take a lot for someone who's spent a couple of decades taking primary responsibility for the compositional process to change their manner of working like this, but between this and his work in other bands from 2009 onwards Morse seems to have done it.

Moreover, he seems to be happy with the results - new Neal Morse Band albums have come out regularly after this, with the songwriting credited to the full band on each, and whilst he's put out a couple of prog albums in his old auteur-like style (Sola Gratia and Jesus Christ the Exorcist, on which he's credited with all the songwriting), they've been outweighed by Neal Morse Band efforts.

Moreover, the change isn't just cosmetic. Neal has his particular songwriting quirks and recurring tricks which we've got used to ever since Spock's Beard, of course, and his fingerprints can be widely uncovered here - the retro-prog moments, the vocal harmonies partaking sometimes of Gentle Giant, sometimes of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, the sunnier 1960s pop influences, and so on - but between having more voices providing input at the early songwriting stage and the seat-of-the-pants recording process, Morse and company are able to produce an album which, while including those touchstones, also includes much which sets this apart from Neal's prior works. Some intense moments more reminiscent of Dream Theater, deeper delves into early Genesis-esque pastoral prog than Neal usually goes for, and so on; even the execution on some of the more Morse-likes bits feels fresh as a result of having people offering new ways to get to the same destination.

There's even a shift in the lyrics; there's definitely Christian interpretations some of the songs point to, but other songs are totally open to other readings. It's not that the Neal Morse Band are deliberately steering away from that subject matter - their next two albums would be concept releases based on The Pilgrim's Progress - so much as Neal and team don't feel obliged to put that front and centre if that's not what they song they are currently playing demands.

It probably helps that Morse has picked out collaborators for the project who he has good chemistry with. The rhythm section of the Neal Morse Band is Randy George on bass and Mike Portnoy on drums. They've been at the core of Neal's team for his solo prog albums more or less from the start - Portnoy was right there on Testimony and has been a mainstay of Morse's prog output ever since, Randy George got onboard with One, Morse's second prog solo album, and has been just as consistently featured since. Both men have had their own successful band projects, so you have just the right qualities here of personnel who on the one hand have great experience in getting Neal's ideas realised, but are also no strangers to pitching in their own ideas in a band context.

Bill Hubauer on keyboards and Eric Gillette on guitar round out the band. Both of them had shown up on Momentum, Neal's previous prog solo album, but in that context they were part of a fairly expanded range of guest musicians. Perhaps these two represent the wildcard factor needed to help shift the Neal Morse Band into a distinctly different musical sphere from Neal's prior work; having put in their time on Momentum, they'd shown an ability to work with Morse, George, and Portnoy, but because they hadn't been such regular staples they're better positioned to perhaps throw in a few curveballs and nudge things in a direction which perhaps Neal, Mike, and Randy wouldn't have spotted, having gotten used to a particular way of working together for this long.

Either way, the end result is tremendously musically refreshing; if you're one of those who drifted away from Morse because you felt his albums were starting to feel samey, perhaps give this a try, because this manages the trick of feeling like a logical further development of his musical direction whilst at the same time feeling fresh and different from what's come before.

lukretion Back in February, Neal Morse (ex-Spock’s Beard) and Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater) brought you the new Transatlantic record, 150 minutes of prog extravaganza divided across two, differently arranged versions of the same album. Since then, the prog wonder pair did not waste any time, and on August 27th they hit the shelves again with a new The Neal Morse Band’s album, Innocence & Danger, a double-disc release that clocks in at nearly 100 minutes of music. This is supposed to be a “simpler”, more spontaneous release compared to the band’s previous three records, which is probably the case considering how their two prior LPs where a pair of interconnected, double-disc concept albums sprawling across 200 minutes of music in total. Instead, Innocence & Danger is a self-contained, song-based affair, written without a specific overarching theme in mind and with a more relaxed, “let’s have fun in the studio” attitude that certainly transpires through the fresh and diverse material of the album.

This is not to say that the 10 songs of Innocence & Danger fall very far from the tree of metallic prog rock that has characterized a great deal of Neal Morse’s discography, especially since he joined forces with Portnoy back in the early 2000s. On the contrary, the new songs are still very much anchored in Morse-Portnoy’s trademark sound: a blend of prog rock intricacies, robust rhythmical acrobatics, grandiose melodies, and madly skilful playing. Yet, some of the material opens up to new and unexpected influences, like the 80s pop vibes of “Another Story to Tell” and the otherwise Beatles-esque “Your Place in the Sun”. Meanwhile, “The Way It Had to Be” is a great bluesy ballad that brings to mind Pink Floyd as well as some of the singer-songwriter material one can find on Neal Morse’s solo albums. And then there is “Bridge over Troubled Water”, an incredible prog adaptation of Simon & Garfunkel’s classic piece. This is actually one of the highlights of the album. The complex instrumental histrionics added to the song structure are absolutely spot on and the vocal arrangements are superb too.

These injections of new and diverse influences give the album a freshness and levity that a lot of contemporary prog rock/metal records lack. However, this does not come at all at the expense of depth and substance: Innocence & Danger contains some extremely rich prog material, that is structurally complex and thoughtfully arranged. Miraculously, however, the music does not feel complex or studied, even when one faces multi-part mammoth pieces like the 31-minute long “Beyond the Years” or the nearly 20 minutes of “Not Afraid Pt 2” (both contained on the second CD). These compositions are so well-thought out and so tastefully arranged that time literally flies by while one listens to these songs. The flow of these tracks is nearly perfect and the songs contain so many moments of melodic brilliance that verses and choruses stick with you only after a couple of listens.

Still, 100 minutes of music ask a considerable time investment to the listener, so the inevitable question is: is all the material consistently high-quality, or could have they slimmed down the album by leaving out some of the weaker songs? To these ears, the opening four tracks of the first CD (“Do It All Again”, “Bird on a Wire”, “Your Place in the Sun” and “Another Story to Tell”) do not quite match the level of quality of the rest of the material, especially of the two long pieces of the second CD. Although these four songs have all some interesting moments, the melodies are somewhat weaker and, despite listening to each piece multiple times, I still cannot remember any specific vocal line or instrumental passage from any of these tracks. The rest of the songs on the first CD are more memorable, but overall I cannot help but feel that there is a slight imbalance between the two discs: the stronger material, the “meat” of the album so to speak, is clearly on disc 2, while disc 1 feels almost like a looser collection of “bonus” tracks, and I notice that I inevitably tend to gravitate towards the second disc in my repeated listens, often skipping altogether the first disc. It’s a pity because some songs from disc 1 are truly excellent, like the aforementioned cover of “Bridge over Troubled Water” and the ballad “The Way It Had to Be”. I feel that a little more quality control could have make this excellent album, a real masterpiece.

One aspect of the album that initially took me by surprise is the alternation between three vocalists: Morse, guitarist Eric Gilette and keyboard player Bill Hubauer. In nearly all tracks, the three singers swap vocal lines continuously throughout a song, which at first I found slightly unsettling, also in part because they each have slightly peculiar, “acquired taste” voices that takes some time getting used to. But I quickly got into the groove and after a few listens it is actually fun to have three vocalists instead of one in each song. Speaking about things that require getting used to, since the early 2000s a lot of Morse’s lyrics revolve around strongly Christian religious themes, and this album is no exception. It’s nothing overly preachy and I personally do not care too much about lyrics, but it is something that some people may not find to their liking, so be warned.

Overall, Innocence & Danger may not be perfect, but it is still a great album that will no doubt satisfy progressive rock fans. The main strength of the album are its freshness and diversity. There is something for every taste, from the whimsical corners of prog-pop, to bluesy Floydian ballads, to harder-edged rockers, to full-blown, multipart prog epics. The metallic undertones of much of the material contained on this LP will also appeal prog metal lovers, especially fans of bands like Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Pain of Salvation or Threshold. If you are prog-inclined, give this one a try, you won’t be disappointed.

[Originally written for The Metal Observer]