(Re)Morseless

These are the three Spock's Beard albums missing Neal Morse.  Interestingly, all three have middling average ratings (between 3.00 and 3.50).  Also, they all have the new logo.  So which Morseless album do you prefer?

3.41 | 56 ratings Feel Euphoria 2003

3.20 | 68 ratings Octane 2005

3.39 | 60 ratings Spock's Beard 2006

Octane. I'd give it four stars, the epic is great and the short tracks are very good, if not really uber-prog. Feel Euphoria is rather on the atrocious side, though it has its moments (like when you press "stop"). The most recent album starts well enough but it has several weak moments, including SB's worst-ever song, "sometimes they stay, sometimes they go".

Edited by The T - October 07 2009 at 11:19

Epignosis wrote: Funny...the one with the highest rating has no votes.  The one with the lowest has the most so far...

 Well I'll throw one up there for Feel Euphoria based on the strength of the "Guy Named Sid" epic.  Second place is for the self titled album, though it does contain possibly the worst Beard song ever, Nick really doesn't sound good singing "Is This Love".

Oh this is absolutely terrible. None of them deserve a rating higher than a 3.2. Octane has two songs I like (She Is Everything and Climbing Up That Hill), the eponymous album has On A Perfect Day and Skeletons At The Feast but also has the most that makes me feel embarrassed for the band. Feel Euphoria isn't that bad. I like East Of Eden West Of Memphis, A Guy Named Sid and Carry On while the rest isn't awful.

b_olariu wrote: Feel Euphoria

Yes, I do, therefore I vote for it
Frankly speaking, I would never have expected that someone else (but me) could like it better than Octane..

I think they got better with every post-Neal effort. I think their first after Neal left is a 3, Octane is a 3.5, and S/T is a four. So the next one should be a five

-Jeff

Epignosis wrote: J-Man wrote: I think they got better with every post-Neal effort. I think their first after Neal left is a 3, Octane is a 3.5, and S/T is a four. So the next one should be a five -Jeff 4.5

Rounded up to a 5

I think there was a poll like this one not so long ago.
So I'll say the same I said in the other one.

First of all, I can't believe Feel Euphoria has a higher rating than the other two albums. It's probably their least interesting effort to date, even though it has great moments (The Bottom Line and A Guy Named Sid suite, for example) and other very good (Onomatopoeia and Ghosts of Autumn). Most of the other tracks, although not being awful, are not so good, as well.

The self-titled has more and better highlights, such as On a Perefct Day, Skeletons at the Feast, With Your Kiss, As Far as the Mind Can See and Rearranged. Also, All That's Left and The Slow Crash Landing Man are good tracks. But the album is quite unfocused. Sometimes They Stay, Sometimes They Go and Wherever You Stand are among the worst tracks the band has ever released.

My vote goes for Octane. The best moments of this album don't reach the brilliance of the best moments of the Spock's Beard album, but they are very very good. Generally speaking, this is most solid non-Morse work. There are no weak tracks here, IMO. A Flash Before My Eyes suite is amazing, even though it's not that prog and can be considered as just 7 tracks justaposed instead of a whole epic. I don't really care about this, since the music is great. The five other tracks are also very good, with NWC and As Long as We Ride being the highlights.

I'm now wondering how the new SBX (creative name, isn't it? ) album will sound like. I have good expectations.