SOLA SCRIPTURA

What can I say? Neal Morse has done it again!

Neal Morse has divided fans after his decision to leave Spock's Beard and Transatlantic, two modern prog bands that were highly respected by many. Afterwards, while he did not end up being very creative and progressive in his solo career, all of his solo albums (excuding the worship CDs) were mature, sophisticated, and professionally done, with plenty of hooks, melodies, and heartfelt vocals and lyrics always based on some christian theme, whether him accepting God, the relationship of Humanity and God, The tabarnacle, and now the controversial figure Martin Luther. Like the previous albums, he hired extremely talented musicians to play in his album, as he can't play all instruments and is not a virtuoso on the keyboard and guitar either. The result is a highly technical, melodic, accessible, and dynamic work of art that brings Martin Luther's actions to life with rock, pop, soft rock, heavy metal, prog, blues, gospel, latin, classical, jazz, and any other genre I might have forgotten.

The Door has everything any prog fan can ask for. It is really the prog fan's wet dream: a monstrous 30-minute long, multi-segmented epic full of feeling, melody, musicianship, and variety. This song, which starts with a heavy fashion (rarely explored by Morse) introduces an anthemic "In The Name of God You Must Die" section and what follows is full of twists and turns. You have something delicate, heaertfelt and gorgous as "All I Ask For" ... the unexpected musical explosion that follows his words "Look Out! What's coming for you!", the Vocal harmonies after Neal screams "How can I keep silent, when I know the truth!", mellotron, a wonderful guitar solo finale. I can go on and on about how magical this piece is. The sound is typical Neal Morse with a heavier edge, more prominent hammond organ and less complex and symphonic, verging on the Neo-Prog sound. The Conflict , while it doesn't top that masterpiece that opens the album, it maintains the high quality. This is a heavier and more bombastic piece, with one section going on a spectacular and desperate guitar/synth alternating with male chorals. This second epic also surprises with a classical acoustic guitar solo and even more with something that sounds like Cuban dance music combined with Santana. Heaven in My Heart is a breather that follows the two gigantic epics. It is Neal Morse with his piano and Orchestra, creating a simple ballad with its orchestra to add a bit of bombast and symphony so that the piece matches the style of the album. The Conclusion features a very heavy jam with mad synth soloing by the Morse himself. Overall, this piece requires a bit more patience as it is a bit drawn out and reprises past melodies, bringing the album to a satisfying conclusion.

I highly recommend this album. The only faults I can give about this album is that the conclusion could have been a bit shorter without losing meaning and that there's a bit of self-plagiarism around this disc which could be a turn off.

Bravo Neal!

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