New look

I've decided to change the look of my blog. The original design was looking too dour in my opinion. I want this to be a happy place, but the vibe was quiet melancholy.

So I've changed the template colors to brighten it up. My lovely wife is working on a new graphic for me, so as soon as I get it I'll customize the colors to match. I'm ditching the tag line, too. It's just going to be called The Pantomime Horse Music Blog. I'm envisioning a sort of 60s-ish graphic, something lively and colorful.

I already think it's easier to read. There's something about white text on a dark background that makes your eyes water.

So stay tuned, soon this will be a happier corner of the Interwebz.

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.