THE NEAL MORSE BAND: THE GRAND EXPERIMENT

I'm not ashamed to admit that I miss Neal Morse's compositions with Spock's Beard. His guest appearance on "Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep" helped, I believe, to make that one of this decade's best (so far) prog albums. His previous studio album, "Momentum", was quite good, so I didn't hesitate to pick this one up when my local CD store gave it a good sale price.

While instrumentally, this is a fine album, it gives me the feeling that Morse is getting into a rut.

First, there is the format. It seems that just about every Morse project consist of two epic tracks framing three shorter, poppier tracks. And that's exactly what we get here. Second, I really do like the music Morse has written here, but, for the most part, it all sounds made up of riffs from old SB tracks. And third, the lyrics. While I am an atheist, I have no problem with religious lyrics, if they are artfully done, but here, Morse's words are ins... insp... ins... oh, insipid.

I feel like I need a Christian Buzzword Bingo card when I'm listening to this. Morse's epics are both inspiring tales, hoping to convey to the poor listener the idea that if you are down and out, the way to raise your spirits up is to give your soul to some imagined supernatural being who controls everything. Okay, I've heard other songs of this type, and they don't have such a negative affect on me, but these are downright trite.

In The Call, Morse uses simplistic evangelical catchphrases to try to entice you into the fold, but I'll I can think of is "What call is he talking about? The one that wants me to consolidate my debt? The one where I am qualified for a "free" security system, or some other "unbelievable" offer? Or how about the guy who claims to be from Microsoft, who think I believe him when he says that he sees a virus on my computer?"

That song doesn't compare to Alive Again, where Morse panders with a character described as the "wounded warrior", who, of course, is in a bad way, and only getting washed in the sea, by a guy walking on water, will bring him back. Come on, Neal, get some originality. You once were good at that.

And Neal? I understand that you are proud of your Agenda, but isn't pride supposed to be one of your sins?

Despite the obvious buzzwords, Waterfall is actually a nice track. It has a CSNY feel, with great harmonies, and is the most original song on the album.

Don't get me wrong. I like the music (not the words) on this album. I just don't love them.

For a Neal Morse fix, if you can block out the vocals, it's not bad.

First off, I'd just like to say that I'm happy for this group of guys at the result of this album. The gimmick was that Neal did not have any new material, and that what we have here was the result of total group collaboration. I highly doubted that it was true in the first place (and it appears that, at least with Agenda, it wasn't), but I didn't know enough about the band members to know whether this would be a productive strategy.

I remember seeing Neal's band live a few years back on the Momentum tour, and my takeaway from that show- -other than being only able to hear bass and drums due to the terrible house sound--was that it didn't seem like a very cohesive group. Neal and Mike hammed it up, Adson Sodre would lay down some killer solos here and there, and Eric and Bill did not seem to have consistent roles to fill.

Now, imagine my skepticism upon hearing that Adson was not going to be on the album! Couple that with the material that was released before the full album: the average title track (despite the interesting chorus, the rest involved the band trying to hard to rock, and I could only picture Neal mean-mugging his was through the intro) and the playful Agenda. There was not much room for optimism, especially since I thought Neal was bordering a bit on staleness in parts of Momentum.

(Side note: I was planning on Agenda being absolutely terrible from reviews, but I like it as a playful throwaway song. It's meant to be cheesy! Watch the video that came out with it, and if you still can't appreciate it at least a little bit, then you could treat it as a bonus track, perhaps.)

However, all of my skepticism was unwarranted, as the rest of the album is quite good. Eric happens to deliver a great lead, full of a variety of tones and creativity, as well as a strong top harmony. Bill provides a more consistent presence in providing layering and texture to the keys, as well as an interesting vocal counterpoint. Notice a theme building about the vocals, because that's the highlight of the album in my book. They perhaps are not great by themselves, but together to combination is quite nice...sometimes I hear some Styx, sometimes some Eagles.

Highlights: The Call, Waterfall, Alive Again. The Call kicks off the album with a great deal of energy, and even if the song doesn't hang together perfectly toward the middle, to my ears it is very refreshing in terms of how it compares to previous material from Neal. Just a really fun song, and you can tell it's a true group effort. Waterfall is a slower tune that features the stacked harmonies, which is quite nice, and then morphs in to a bit of a Genesis Entangled vibe that I appreciate. Finally, Alive Again represents the epic, and I think it it quite a success. To be clear, it is not perfect, but I don't think perfection was really a possibility if the group was trying to maintain a team effort. For example, Bill's vocals in the "Man I'll Never Be" section get a bit rough and mush- mouthed, but he comes around nicely. Also, the middle theme that is revisited in what feels like dozens of times is just not good enough to be featured so heavily. Fortunately, there is enough creativity and variety to make the journey quite listenable, particularly because the finale is absolutely soaring and huge. The stacked harmonies, the majestic interpretation of the original chorus, the killer tempo kick...it's all great to my ears. I would nitpick the fade-out, but I just don't have the heart to do that here (you could argue that I just did, but it's not my intent to make this a backhanded compliment!)

Overall, I believe this represents a needed change of sound, the cohesion of a true band, and the potential for great things! Of all of Neal's solo and collaborative material, I have heard little that reminds me of Spock's Beard, but I swear there are sections here (fat, groovy bass from Randy, energetic but understated drums from Mike, for example) that really take me back, and in a good way. Here's hoping for Grand Revival in the future!

The idea of changing the songwriting formula by writing the songs all together instead of Neal Morse writing alone before bringing his ideas seems to be a refreshing idea. The result is not obvious in the first song "The Call" who has all the trademark of a typical Neal Morse song with it's ambitious symphonic style. But in the the songs "Alive Again" and "MacArthur Park", there is something different from the usual Neal Morse style with interesting instrumental passages. But at the same time, there is some less progressive songs that are more classic rock like "The Grand Experiment" and "Agenda". "Waterfall" is the ultimate ballad to put you in a different mood. The major change to me was the idea of letting Eric Gillette take the lead vocals role. And he has done a very good job in that department. The bonus CD is as good as the first CD but with another too repetitive and simple song :"New Jerusalem", in which the only bright spot is the drums parts that recall Manu Katché or some late period of Genesis. Finally, the longest tracks are the best ones, the others are taking a more standard rock direction and while have a certain appeal don't have the grandeur of the other tracks. I am happy that Neal Morse has brings something new to his music. The production and the musicianship are flawless, especially the bass and drums parts.

`The Grand Experiment' of the title is not only Neal Morse's personal reference to his Christian lifestyle in the track of the same name, but also how this disc, technically his twentieth studio release (yes, really!) came to be composed. The musicians involved entered the studio with no prior written material and recorded their results in a short time, meaning that this experimental approach was a true group collaboration. Billed here as `The Neal Morse Band', the core line-up of keyboardist Morse's solo albums including bass virtuoso Randy George and master drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater's loss turned out to be a gift for general prog fans!) were joined by Eric Gillette on extra guitar and vocals and Bill Hubauer on additional keyboards, clarinet and flute this time around, and it's wonderful to discover the group came up with a very punchy and concise work in the end. While some of the five pieces here still, of course, follow some of the usual Morse format, there's a freshness and a variety of sounds and styles not often found on his prog albums, no doubt due to the new song-writing approach of the others and their additional influences.

The ten minute `The Call' is a classic Neal Morse opener, all spiralling keyboards, frantic drumming, pulsing bass and wailing guitars to be found in the lengthy instrumental runs, yet never forgetting to incorporate catchy melodies and a winning chorus. Relentlessly upbeat and up-tempo, the aggressive guitar grunt and delirious synth noodling just before the six minute mark is especially tasty, the joyful and slick AOR vocals are easy to enjoy and there's just a dash of country to the harmonies here and there as well! The title track `The Grand Experiment' is a heavy guitar driven plodding rocker with a catchy chorus, and as often with Morse, some of the multi- layered sighing honey-dipped harmonies recall retro-rocker Matthew Sweet, and `Waterfall' is a warm and dreamy acoustic ballad with a reflective, pleading spiritual lyric and sublime group harmonies.

The tongue-in-cheek `Agenda' playfully alternates between heavy slab-like guitar verses and falsetto psychedelic pop choruses, the chest-beating lyric delivered with great self-pride and a wink in the eye! This is Morse cheerfully sticking it to his critics and giving them the middle finger...well, as politely as a Christian can! But it wouldn't be a Neal Morse album without at least one lengthy epic (Hey, it's prog - size matters!), and `Alive Again' runs just short of twenty-seven minutes. Reaching victorious electric guitar runs deliver a collection of grand symphonic themes and big dramatic builds, with a strong mix of muscular heavy workouts and softer thoughtful breaks, some fleeting classical pomp, even an addictive funky horn break, and the powerful recurring `I can see the light, burning in my soul' chorus truly soars.

Is this one of his Morse's best prog releases? `Sola Scriptura' and `One' definitely tower over it, but `The Grand Experiment' is certainly one of his warmest, most relaxed and fun. The quick turnaround of writing and recording means some of the lyrics occasionally come up short by falling back on awkward rhyming words (and the 'She's like the secret sauce' line in the title track is a particularly awful clunker!), but the material Morse and company came up with is exciting and yet more evidence of his keen melodic skill and ability to surround himself with other talented musicians to deliver it. It's also refreshing to see a 52 minute vinyl length release from him (excluding the wealth of extra outtakes, demos and covers across a range of deluxe and expanded editions), making the album more focused and compact with none of the bloat that sometimes pads out his other solo and Transatlantic works, and the shorter running time will also mean the disc gets plenty of replays and becomes more familiar quicker too. This particular line-up has proven especially fruitful and rewarding, so let's hope The Neal Morse Band gets another outing in the future!

Four stars.

Although Neal Morse did put out a couple of albums of singer-songwriter material before he left Spock's Beard, his solo career really kicked into high gear after he left that band, with Neal rapidly developing an extensive and very varied discography. Some albums were of avowedly Christian worship music; others were progressive rock that musically saw him further develop the direction he'd been working in towards the end of his Spock's Beard tenure, but lyrically focusing on avowedly Christian themes. Still other albums were of cover versions of favourite songs, or of poppy singer-songwriter material.

This can mean that albums under the "Neal Morse" name offer a bit of a minefield - that's not so, however, with "The Neal Morse Band". Debuting on The Grand Experiment, the group sits squarely in the prog realm, so you can be pretty sure of what you're getting so long as their name is on the label. One could be forgiven for wondering if this isn't just canny marketing on Neal's part - a scheme to better guide listeners to the parts of his discography they're likely to respond well to. That's not the case, though; as the title of The Grand Experiment implies, the Neal Morse Band isn't just a continuation of business as usual for Neal, but a shift in his approach.

After his surprise return to Transatlantic in 2009, Neal seemed to rediscover his love of working as part of a band: he joined a new project, Flying Colors, he guested with Spock's Beard, he started this project, in which he and the titular Band went into the studio with nothing prepared in advance, with the aim of producing an album in as collaborative a manner as possible. This was a big departure for Morse in terms of his working style - hence the album title - and with all five band members credited equally on all of the album's tracks, the goal of producing the album in a maximally collaborative manner seems to have been achieved.

It's hard to understate how big a shift that is, in terms of Morse's usual musical approach. On his previous prog solo albums, Neal was credited with writing more or less all the music and lyrics, and back when he was in Spock's Beard he was very much the band leader and did the lion's share of the writing there. It must take a lot for someone who's spent a couple of decades taking primary responsibility for the compositional process to change their manner of working like this, but between this and his work in other bands from 2009 onwards Morse seems to have done it.

Moreover, he seems to be happy with the results - new Neal Morse Band albums have come out regularly after this, with the songwriting credited to the full band on each, and whilst he's put out a couple of prog albums in his old auteur-like style (Sola Gratia and Jesus Christ the Exorcist, on which he's credited with all the songwriting), they've been outweighed by Neal Morse Band efforts.

Moreover, the change isn't just cosmetic. Neal has his particular songwriting quirks and recurring tricks which we've got used to ever since Spock's Beard, of course, and his fingerprints can be widely uncovered here - the retro-prog moments, the vocal harmonies partaking sometimes of Gentle Giant, sometimes of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, the sunnier 1960s pop influences, and so on - but between having more voices providing input at the early songwriting stage and the seat-of-the-pants recording process, Morse and company are able to produce an album which, while including those touchstones, also includes much which sets this apart from Neal's prior works. Some intense moments more reminiscent of Dream Theater, deeper delves into early Genesis-esque pastoral prog than Neal usually goes for, and so on; even the execution on some of the more Morse-likes bits feels fresh as a result of having people offering new ways to get to the same destination.

There's even a shift in the lyrics; there's definitely Christian interpretations some of the songs point to, but other songs are totally open to other readings. It's not that the Neal Morse Band are deliberately steering away from that subject matter - their next two albums would be concept releases based on The Pilgrim's Progress - so much as Neal and team don't feel obliged to put that front and centre if that's not what they song they are currently playing demands.

It probably helps that Morse has picked out collaborators for the project who he has good chemistry with. The rhythm section of the Neal Morse Band is Randy George on bass and Mike Portnoy on drums. They've been at the core of Neal's team for his solo prog albums more or less from the start - Portnoy was right there on Testimony and has been a mainstay of Morse's prog output ever since, Randy George got onboard with One, Morse's second prog solo album, and has been just as consistently featured since. Both men have had their own successful band projects, so you have just the right qualities here of personnel who on the one hand have great experience in getting Neal's ideas realised, but are also no strangers to pitching in their own ideas in a band context.

Bill Hubauer on keyboards and Eric Gillette on guitar round out the band. Both of them had shown up on Momentum, Neal's previous prog solo album, but in that context they were part of a fairly expanded range of guest musicians. Perhaps these two represent the wildcard factor needed to help shift the Neal Morse Band into a distinctly different musical sphere from Neal's prior work; having put in their time on Momentum, they'd shown an ability to work with Morse, George, and Portnoy, but because they hadn't been such regular staples they're better positioned to perhaps throw in a few curveballs and nudge things in a direction which perhaps Neal, Mike, and Randy wouldn't have spotted, having gotten used to a particular way of working together for this long.

Either way, the end result is tremendously musically refreshing; if you're one of those who drifted away from Morse because you felt his albums were starting to feel samey, perhaps give this a try, because this manages the trick of feeling like a logical further development of his musical direction whilst at the same time feeling fresh and different from what's come before.