Review update: Flying Colors - Second Nature

This is the first time I've ever done this. I usually stand by my reviews as written, and I still do for Flying Colors' newest release, Second Nature, for the most part. But I've had time to listen to it, repeatedly, and I have to say that my initial assessment may have been a little off. Maybe I was feeling particularly jaded that day or something.

In my closing paragraph, I did say that it gets better with repeated listens. I just didn't realize how much better. I no longer mind the split personality of this album - the pop/prog mix works well, much better than I thought it would.

Although I still feel "The Fury of My Love" is a way too cheesy, this album has become one of my favorites of the year, and it can stand toe-to-toe with anything else these guys have done. While my first review ended with a 3.5 out of 5 rating, repeated listens ups that to a solid 4.5 (minus .5 for the cheese). This album is worth the purchase. Buy it. Go ahead. You know you want to.

Album Review - Second Nature by Flying Colors

Second Nature, the second album by supergroup Flying Colors, is an odd release. It's odd because whether or not the listener is new to the music of Neal Morse will profoundly influence their reactions.

Those new to the musings of Morse, and progressive rock as a whole, will be blown away by the technical histrionics, the catchy hooks, and the polished songwriting we've come to expect from anything he's involved with. For some, it may be one of the best albums they've ever heard, with them saying things like, "Why isn't all music like this?" And, "Why aren't these guys more famous?"

For the rest of us, however, the album will seem all too familiar, if not a bit formulaic. In fact, the first track, "Open Up Your Eyes," sounds like an extra track from Transatlantic's Kaleidoscope, which makes sense because these songs were probably written around the same time. The closing epic "Cosmic Symphony" is classic Morse-style prog, complete with the quasi-religious lyrics and bombastic closing crescendo that have become the hallmarks of his style.

Review: Rob Chapman - Bare Bones

I've been following Rob Chapman - a.k.a. Chappers, a.k.a. The Monkey Lord - on YouTube for a few years now, and while I continue to watch his videos for his humor and his personality, it doesn't hurt that he's also a world class guitarist and an equally good guitar instructor.

However, before he was Rob Chapman, YouTube celebrity, he was Rob Chapman, professional guitarist. After a few bands he was in disintegrated, he put out a solo EP called Red Dream and started his YouTube channel. While building his empire (he also has a guitar company called Chapman Guitars) he recorded more songs and released another EP, but none of them had a wide release.

This year, to close the chapter on his early work and forge ahead to new horizons, he's released a compilation album called Bare Bones. In it are remastered versions of songs from his Red Dream EP along with songs recorded with his short-lived band Monkey Lord and his second EP At Arms Reach. While it's a good album on its own and features some of his best work, it's lacking enough to stop it from being the definitive Chappers collection.

Review: Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn of Events

Perhaps one of the most anticipated new releases of the year, Dream Theater's A Dramatic Turn of Events marks their first effort without the services of drummer and co-founder Mike Portnoy, whose much publicized exit drew strong reactions from both sides - fans of Portnoy who resent the rest of the band for turning their backs on him, and fans of Dream Theater who resent Portnoy for turning their backs on them.

I won't breach that subject in this review. Instead, I'll focus on post-Portnoy Dream Theater and how this album stacks up against the rest of the band's catalog.

I have to admit I'm a big fan of Mike Portnoy. Not only is he a legendary drummer but he's also a genuinely nice guy, at least that's the vibe I got from him when I met him earlier this year after the Neal Morse show in Denver. It's a bit strange to hear a Dream Theater album without him in it. It's almost like being friends with your best friend's ex - you still like the person but you can't help but feel like you're betraying your friend.

Review: Neal Morse - Lifeline

After being relatively impressed with Neal Morse's latest effort, Testimony 2, I decided to go backwards and check out his earlier work. This sent me back to his previous release, Lifeline, which was released in 2008.

I've been a big fan of Neal since his Spock's Beard days. For those of you who don't know, Neal founded Spock's Beard after failing to make it as a pop songwriter in Los Angeles, and after six albums together (and two more with his side project Transatlantic), he became a born-again Christian and embarked on a solo career where he could more freely express his religious views.

I'm also a big fan of what I call classic Progressive Rock, something I've also heard called "retrogressive" as it has its influences in the past and doesn't necessarily progress forward. Neal is arguably the modern master of classic Prog, and losing him to Christian music was a blow to secular fans like myself. Fortunately for us, Neal never abandoned his Prog roots and essentially followed dual career paths - one as a Christian artist making typical praise albums, and one as a Prog artist writing Christian-themed music. As long as the secular fan could get past the godly lyrics, they could still enjoy listening to one of the most talented people in the world do what he does best - Yes/Genesis inspired Prog with a hint of the Beatles.

Review: Neal Morse - Testimony 2

It's been nine years since Neal Morse embraced Christianity and left Spock's Beard and Transatlantic to pursue a solo career, and eight years since he tried to explain why with his prog epic Testimony. Now he's come back to finish the story with Testimony 2, which highlights his time in the Beard and delves deeper into his conversion.

In those nine years, Morse has dove headlong into his religion in both his personal life and his music. While still a purveyor of prog, his albums have become more and more religious with each offering. When Neal and the Transatlantic boys decided to get back together in 2009 and make an album, I approached the results with more than a little trepidation, as I said in my review, and lo and behold the result was more than a little church-y. So I took an even healthier dose of skepticism with Testimony 2, as there was little need for Neal to even pretend to be secular.

The album is split into two discs. Disc one includes the Testimony 2 suite broken up into three parts. It starts off with part six, much like the first Star Wars movie is actually part four. There's a second disc with three unrelated songs and a DVD chronicling the making of the disc, which I haven't watched yet.

Review: Paul Cusick - Focal Point

British musician Paul Cusick is employing a novel way to promote his album, Focal Point. He is using social media to target progressive rock fans through Facebook advertisements, even once offering the album for free for a limited time. This is a grand experiment that probably points to the future of music promotion as social media and electronic publishing slowly replace current industry standards and the CD goes the way of the dodo, or at least the cassette tape.

Cusick's ads say that fans of Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd would like the album, as it should - the album wears its influences on its sleeve and the comparisons to Porcupine Tree are evident. The album has that dark, melancholy sound that is a hallmark of both Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd, and the overall production is very similar to Porcupine Tree's latest album, The Incident.

Not to say that Focal Point is a bad album - it's not. In fact, for a one-man self-release it's quite strong. The album is more song oriented than those of its influences and is a combination of heavier songs and ballads, including a few instrumentals. The album starts off well with the title track, a sub-3 minute instrumental in 7/8 time that sets the tone for the record. The musicianship is strong, and even though Cusick played all the instruments, it sounds like a band, which is a testament to his multi-instrumental skills.

Review: Spock's Beard - X

Spock's Beard has been a band in search of an identity ever since founder, singer, keyboardist and songwriter Neal Morse found religion and left the band in 2001. With their tenth album, X, the band has finally emerged from his shadow and crafted a release that stands as not only the best album of the post-Neal Morse era but one of the best of the band's entire discography.

X is more of an evolution of their previous self-titled album than it is a revolutionary album, which is fine because it builds on the strengths of that album - which was, at the time, their best second-generation effort - and removes the weaknesses that have appeared since Feel Euphoria, namely weak lyrics, uneven songwriting, poor track placement and occasional filler. There are no weak points on this entire album, which consists of two long-form epics, four lengthy stand-alone tracks ranging from 5 to 10 minutes in length (five on the limited-edition CD) and one instrumental. The band has thankfully abandoned the practice of splitting up the multi-movement pieces into separate CD tracks, which caused some confusion, especially when they put unrelated, stand-alone tracks after them. The album flows remarkably well from beginning to end as if a lot of thought was put into the track order. Well done.

Review: The Whirlwind by Transatlantic

When I heard that Transatlantic was reuniting for a new album, I was completely jazzed. After all, their previous album, Bridge Across Forever, is one of my favorite prog albums of all time. I was sure that anything they could put out would be a worthy addition to the genre.

I had my concerns, though.

The reason Transatlantic has been on the backburner for the last eight years is because Neal Morse, who also fronted Spock's Beard at the time, found Jesus and promptly left both bands. That was in 2001. Since then, he's put out a string of albums, some prog, some not, but all of them Christian. Now I have nothing against spirituality per se, but I don't want to be proselytized to and I certainly don't want to listen to an album that's full of the G- and J-words. I like my prog with a little less God, so to speak. I heard his Testimony album and while the music was solid, the lyrics ranged from groanworthy to completely laughable. Since Neal is the principle songwriter for the band, I was duly concerned.

So it was with this combination of excitement and skepticism that I dove into The Whirlwind.