KALEIDOSCOPE

The staggering amounts of material copying themselves and others churned out yearly by Neal Morse and Roine Stolt - in that order, main engines behind Transatlantic (ex-Dream Theater Mike Portnoy and Marillion's Pete Trevawas all contribute and are featured prominently in the mix, but creatively are more like second bananas) - never seizes to amaze. Amaze, that those legendary egomaniacs still manage to sound fluid and catchy. Kaleidoscope does not differ one iota from Transatlantic previous 3 albums - bombastic overlong retro-prog - and from Morse and Stolt main bands for that matter. Maybe teeny-weeny more of Stolt's guitar - which is a good thing. But if you pretend their sources didn't exist - this would be your favorite album.

People listen to Transatlantic for 30-minute epics, and here they are again, no better but no worse than others. Into the blue is actually quite successful 'cause it doesn't overwhelm with gazillions of themes, and has a cool Crimsonian dark groovy part. Kaleidoscope song is also very melodic, but more stitched together. Their shorter songs are usually forgettable, but here they have a better one of their ballads (Shine) and a surprisingly raucous rocker (Black as the sky).