DEEP WATER

Cosmic Cathedral is a new band featuring Neal Morse with guitarist Phil Keaggy and bassist Byron House (both people Neal had worked with before) plus former Genesis live drummer Chester Thompson, who Neal met at a Steve Hackett gig in November 2023. The four of them got together to jam and the album Deep Water is the result. It consists of five songs, the first of which is a 13 minute mini-epic and the last a 38 minute, multi part piece, with three shorter songs in between. This seems like a favourite pattern for Morse, off the top of my head I can think of The Grand Experiment, No Hill For A Climber, and Transatlantic's Kaleidoscope using the same formula.

Speaking of formula, this album is pretty similar to any other Morse prog album, albeit with some jazzy elements added, probably courtesy of Thompson's drumming style. Also, the Christian lyrics that Morse is renowned for are pretty prominent here. Hardly surprising having read the liner notes I see that all the band members are Christians. So if you don't like Morse's more direct Christian references, it's maybe not the album for you. If you do, however, Deep Water is as good as many other albums he's made, and better than some.

So, let's dive in track by track:

1. The Heart Of Life - written solely by Neal and it could be on any prog album by him really. It starts with an extended instrumental section followed by a pause before the vocals come in. Very familiar Morse territory. It's an excellent start 8/10

2. Time To Fly - A decent tune, very catchy, less proggy than some of the other tracks. Nice use of saxophone and female backing vocals 7/10

3. I Won't Make It - another Morse-only composition and quite honestly I don't think it belongs on this album. It's very much in the vein of his singer/songwriter stuff. Not a bad song though. 6/10

4. Walking In Daylight - Phil Keaggy takes lead vocal on this one (and he shares the writing credit for the lyrics with Neal). It's the most jazzy song on the album, a funky intro, some jazz piano, and even a bass solo. I like it a lot. 9/10

5. Deep Water Suite - so we come to the centre piece of the album, a 38 minute song divided into 9 sections. And what a journey it is! Beginning with the lyric "Launch out into the deep water," a phrase that recurs throughout, not just in the three sections labelled Launch Out parts one, two and three, but also midway through Fires Of The Sunrise and at the very end of the piece, the phrase refers to trusting God. In Neal's autobiography Testimony he describes his conversion as a vision of standing at the top of a waterfall and being encouraged to jump into the water below. Clearly he is referencing this here. Following the initial "Launch Out" lyric (sung through a vocoder) there follows a typical Morse overture. The vocals come in with launch Out Part One, and following this is a more acoustic section, Fires Of The Sunrise. Storm Surface is an instrumental interlude which reprises one of the riffs from Launch Out Part One and highlights Keaggy's tasteful lead guitar style. Then we have Nightmare In Paradise which is a bit different to Morse's usual style. Following the brief Launch Out Part Two, New Revelation is another upbeat track. Then we revisit the Launch Out theme again before the closing section, The Door To Heaven, which sounds like any other Neal Morse closing track with lots of build-up to a climactic ending. The whole piece is a masterpiece. 10/10

To summarise, these are four excellent musicians. I was familiar with Morse, Keaggy and Thompson before but Byron House is a phenomenal bassist. Chester Thompson brings a more jazzy feel to the music than Mike Portnoy would have done, but all in all this is a typical Neal Morse project and if you like his music you will like this.

Cosmic Cathedral - Deep Water Another Neal Morse group?. This time with Genesis live member Chester Thompson, long time CCM guitarist Phil Keaggy, and versatile session bassist Byron House. The result is Cosmic Cathedral. The album follows a familiar setup that Morse has followed on several projects: Two epics bookending some shorter pieces. In this case, leading off is a 14 minute epic "The Heart of Life", followed by three very different middle pieces then finishing with a 38 minute epic. Being a Neal Morse homer, I was probably going to like this album regardless. However, what I wasn't prepared for was how excellent the performances are by Thompson, Keaggy, and House. Chester is a much different drummer than Mike Portnoy and his style adds more of a jazz or funk feel to many passages on this record. I was concerned about him going into the record because he's 76 years old. I should have learned my lesson after recently seeing Ian Paice with Deep Purple who is the same age. He's still got it. I have been a fan of Phil Keaggy's since his days with Glass Harp in the early 70s. There's an urban legend that Hendrix referred to Keaggy as the world's greatest guitarist. Keaggy points out that they did record the first Glass Harp album at Hendrix's studio but this was only a couple of weeks before Hendrix died so it's unlikely he could have said this in an interview. In any event, Keaggy is a monster and has been for a long time. On "Deep Water", Keaggy is excellent. His solos are spot on and his vocals match very well with Neal's. The biggest surprise for on this album is Byron House. I had to look him up. As it turns out, he's got around 300 album credits to his name; many well known, and many in my collection. His playing on this record is just terrific. The concept for the album comes from Neal's autobiography where he describes his Christian conversion as a vision of standing at the top of a waterfall and being encouraged to jump into the water below. The Deep Water Suite goes back to the "launch out into the deep water" as a central theme of the epic. I am thoroughly enjoying this album and am regretting that I didn't get the signed copy. If you're a prog fan, you need this. If you're a Christian, it's a must have.

Another new album and new band from the legendary and ever-prolific prog icon Neal Morse, and yes, its another winner, a high quality album for Neal and his latest new band incarnation. This time Neal teamed up with guitarist Phil Keaggy, drummer Chester Thompson, and bassist Byron House, just to hang out and jam. But as it was with his last impromptu band, The Resonance (Neal Morse and The Resonance - No Hill For a Climber, 2024), before long the jamming gelled into an album (must be nice). With this band, the music takes a bit jazzier, funkier, and looser vibe than other Morse albums, but still maintains most of the hallmarks of Morse's compositions and style. There is plenty here for fans of Neal to love, and the cool jazz elements provided by the new backing band add some different textures, such as on the Keaggy vocal-led track Walking Into Darkness. The epic Deep Water suite (6 parts, 29 min.) has all the grandeur and sweep of Neal's trademark epics. However, for those that feel Neal has been repeating many of the same musical styles and motifs over the past several albums, they probably won't be convinced otherwise with this new release, but another very good album. Best Tracks: Walking Into Darkness, Deep Water Suite. Rating: 3.5

*In a moment of existential contemplation, this review was written simultaneously with Steven Wilson's The Overview. In a similar mode to Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, the general theme here is existential understanding, big and small. Here Neal Morse is thinking small, in terms of the importance of the value of personal relationships and the effort required to maintain them. When he thinks big, it's mostly to reinforce the focus on the importance of personal thinking and behavior guided by religious beliefs, because our need to feel comfort in those times we look up and think about larger (and potentially unfeeling and uncaring) cosmic forces can be resolved because the Big Guy will take care of all of that. Our actions matter because we are designed to fit into that plan, and if we do that, He's cool with us. The deep blue of the blue pill that can only be found in the deepest water, so to speak.*

It's still a ton of fun to follow Neal's career. From Spock's to solo to NMB to religious classic interpretations to...well, I had thought the well had run a bit dry, so Neal did the unexpected and first collaborated with a bunch of younger musicians to largely positive results, but then also collaborated with a bunch of other late-career musicians.

The latter is what we have here: Cheezus prog by geezers! The story is interesting about how this album came about, but I think there's certainly a lot of mythmaking about the results being jams stitched together into something magical. This is definitely a Neal Morse album, and much of the writing/progression is borrowing from his previous works, or others. For example, take The Heart of Life. The opening sounds like early Transatlantic, the verse sounds like Spock's, and I cannot for life of my hear the chorus without thinking of Song for America. There are many similar moments in the Deep Water epic as well. Fun, and perhaps even innovative...if you haven't heard a bunch of Neal as I have.

The writing is what it is. The only other fairly substantial flaw is Neal going over the top. Too many widdly synth runs and way, way to many Neal vocal improve. The Heart of Life is by far the worst, as it's filled with hey heys, yeah yeahs, and the dreaded falsetto "YEAAAAAHHHHH" blast. Imagine a random person screaming "yeah" as loud and as high as they can, and ask yourself if you think anyone would want to pay to hear that? For some reason, Neal just cannot figure this out. My advice: write the lyrics and sing the lyrics, and stick to that.

Given those flaws, why do I enjoy this album so much then? It's the players! It's nice to hear some Neal prog without Thunderdrums Portnoy. Byron is bringing wonderful variety on the bass, from stiff, to warm, to that beautiful fretless double octave solo in the Deep Water suite. But by far the biggest highlight is Phil. I've been hearing all my life about how good Phil Keaggy is, and every time I've explored his stuff, I can respect the incredible tone and playing, but I don't really enjoy the musical experience. It's like my experience of trying pork chops and never really enjoying the experience compared to steak or lobster, but then I had a double chop that was perfectly cooked and seasoned, and I'll never forget it. Now I've heard this wonderful version of Phil, and he adds so much in terms of the guitar, and then more in the vocals for an added surprise. It's like he slots into the Eric Gillette role in the Morse-iverse, but with more technical variety and richer, bigger tone. For example, have you ever wondered what it would sound like for Eric Johnson to play an extended solo on a Supertramp tune? Probably not, but with Walking in Daylight, we have the answer, and it's a lot of fun!

All in all, that's 3 stars for the writing/originality, and 5 stars for the musicianship, which levels out at a solid 4-star. If you still the traditional Neal-prog style, but are interested in the being applied to diverse, talented, and seasoned musicians, Cosmic Cathedral will certainly do the trick, and you can feel safe taking the dive into Deep Water.