THE NEAL MORSE BAND — The Grand Experiment (review)

THE NEAL MORSE BAND — The Grand Experiment album cover

Album · 2015 · Metal Related

5/5 · 2022-09-04
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.