THE LIGHT

The Light is the debut album from american symphonic prog rockers Spock´s Beard. I was introduced to Spock´s Beard via their fifth album V, but shortly afterwards I bought The Light ( and every other album by Spock´s Beard) as I was very excited about V. Spock´s Beard play retro seventies symphonic prog rock inspired by such groups as Yes, The Beatles, Genesis and especially Gentle Giant.

The Light consists of four songs. Three of them are over 10 minutes long and the last one called On the Edge is a more straight forward rocker which lasts for about 6 minutes. The album opens with the title track which is a very beautiful and structurally complex song. It´s a great song and a Spock´s Beard classic. Go The Way You Go is the next song and it´s a great melodic track as well. Not as good as The Light but enjoyable never the less. The Water is a 23 minute + epic track which is the best song here IMO. Truly symphonic prog rock heaven. This song reeks of class. On the Edge has never dazzled me much. It´s my least favorite song on The Light. The music is generally very melodic and memorable. There are lots of arranged instrumental sections but Neal Morse vocal lines are the focus of the music.

The musicianship is excellent. Frontman, keyboardist and main composer Neal Morse is an extraordinaire artist, but his sidemen brother Alan Morse on guitar, Dave Meros on bass and French Horn and Nick D'Virgilio on drums, percussion and vocals are also very accomplished musicians and all members bring something special to the sound.

The production isn´t as good as it would be on later albums, but the message comes across, so I guess it´s allright.

If you can see through the pretty obvious christian messages in the lyrics ( which I can´t stand) and Neal Morse sometimes too sensitive vocal approach ( Read: Cheesy) this is great music. The Light is one of the albums that helped re-ignite the american prog rock scene in the nineties which Spock´s Beard should be credited for. The Light isn´t my favorite Spock´s Beard album but there are plenty of quality music here to justify either a big 3 star rating or a small 4 star rating. I´ll go for a big 3 star rating. I know many people can´t stand Spock´s Beard either because they make retro prog rock or because of their obvious christian lyrical approach. For me it´s not a problem that Spock´s Beard is influenced by the great seventies prog rock bands but sometimes the christian approach does take it´s toll on me and destroys my listening pleasure. It´s very seldom though as the great music overshadows the problem most of the time. It´s like that on most Spock´s Beard albums for me.