SPOCK'S BEARD

Conversely, The Oblivion Particle found them shifting their sound in a somewhat different direction from previously, perhaps in a conscious attempt to give the Ted Leonard era a distinctive sound of its own - something that felt like a fairly accessible mashup of Trick of the Tail-era Genesis and Kansas, along similar lines to Crucible and their overlooked 1990s prog classic Tall Tales, with perhaps a few more pinches of AORish-ness here and there.

Noise Floor is, in essence, The Oblivion Particle 2 in this respect, in that it largely finds the band following that same general course. How you feel about this will depend on how invested you are in prior sounds adopted by Spock's Beard. If you were very big on the epic-length compositions, Gentle Giant nods, and the occasional unexpected ingredients from genres not typically associated with prog of the Neal Morse era, or the somewhat recalibrated eclecticism of the Nick D'Virgilio era, then you may find this is a little straightforward for your case.

If, on the other hand, the idea of Spock's Beard turning their hands to fairly gentle neo-prog appeals, then you'll have fun with this one. It's interesting to see what happens when bands which could produce something much more technically complex (and the Beard have proved they have those chops several times over) instead turn their talents to something like this - working in a neo-prog/AOR format not because they have to, but because they have made a conscious decision to. In this case, I find it rather charming, and another grand success from the Ted Leonard-led incarnation of the band.

One point of interest here is that Jimmy Keegan is no longer on drums - he'd had to drop out due to other commitments prior to this. Nick D'Virgilio comes back to help, but as with Neal Morse on Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep this is strictly in a guest musician capacity, not as a full member of the band. In addition, as with The Oblivion Particle the band don't write as much of this material as you might expect - good chunks are written by Stan Ausmus and John Boegehold.

Stan and John have been assisting the band with songwriting ever since Feel Euphoria, but it feels like with The Oblivion Particle and this album the rest of the group have scaled back their songwriting contribution and let Stan, John, and Ted Leonard take the lead. It's notable that subsequent to this album, Dave Meros, Ted Leonard, and John Boegehold would reunite with Jimmy Keegan to form Pattern-Seeking Animals, a spin-off project who've been more active in terms of getting releases out than Spock's Beard.

With Pattern-Seeking Animals forming an outlet for the more melodic approach of Boegehold, will we see subsequent Spock's Beard albums shift away from this approach? Maybe, maybe not - but I for one am glad that the Beard have taken this journey into a more immediately accessible style, which they execute without embarrassing themselves or outright abandoning some of their more intricate roots - they're just a bit more artful about how they deploy those intricacies.

...until 2016, that is. After shocking the prog world by quitting all his existing band projects in 2002, Neal shocked it again in 2009 by returning to band work, reforming Transatlantic. Between that, the brand new Flying Colors project, and The Neal Morse Band (in which, despite the name, songwriting duties are shared much more evenly than on Neal's solo albums), it became evident that Neal was now comfortable with working as part of a band again, even on projects which didn't have an overt, explicitly stated Christian focus.

He'd even make appearances with Spock's Beard, joining them onstage at a festival or two and even making contributions to the Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep album, though being careful to be credited as a guest rather than a full member of the band. This was a classy move, because that album was the debut of Ted Leonard as the group's full-time frontman (after filling in for a departing Nick D'Virgilio on some live gigs), and it's clear that whilst Neal was happy to stop by to help out, he was also humble enough not to upstage the new singer right when he needed that spotlight.

Snow Live, however, represents perhaps the biggest and most significant reunion of Neal and Spock's Beard to date: a full live performance of the album, performed at Morsefest. (Morsefest is Neal's homegrown fan convention, a bit like his version of Marillion's weekend bashes - one likes to think of him chatting with his Transatlantic bandmate Pete Trewavas between takes in the studio, picking his brains about the logistics of running such things.) This consists of the full Snow epic, plus two encores - old favourite June and Falling Forever, a track previously recorded by Neal and Spock's Beard for the First Twenty Years compilation album.

Inevitably, such an undertaking involves Neal being prominently featured front and centre - a de facto reunion, even if just for this show (and a repeat in Europe a short while later). Snow was an extremely personal concept for him - it's basically him working through his feelings about quitting the band before he actually quit the band, he wrote almost all the music and lyrics, that's just inevitable.

Nonetheless, Neal and the band do a grand job of making the show less about Neal coming back and acting as frontman for one more night, and more about a celebration of the band's entire history. Far from sitting this one out, Ted Leonard is included in the show, the group doing a fine job of finding ways for him to contribute some lead performances as well as assisting with the backing vocals where it would serve the concept to do so. Likewise, Nick D'Virgilio came back for this gig, with the band using a two-drummer setup to allow him and Jimmy Keegan to play together, and he also contributes some vocals too in keeping with his role of frontman for the run of albums between Neal leaving and Ted Leonard joining.

(Having multiple vocalists on hand, in fact, turns out to be not just a bonus, but essential - after all, as with much early Spock's Beard stuff, there's some moments where they get into intricately intertwined vocals reminiscent of some of Gentle Giant's experiments in that vein; you might be able to do that solo in a studio by multi-tracking your voice, but you need a bunch of vocalists on hand to do that live!)

In other words, the album doesn't just include Neal Morse playing with Spock's Beard again - it also includes every single person who'd been an official member of Spock's Beard on a studio album up to this point. (Original bassist John Ballard isn't on it, but John was only in the band fairly briefly, departing before they recorded The Light.) The result is a performance of Snow which is somewhat warmer than the chilly title implies - and it works an absolute treat. Some credit has to be given to the delightful acoustics of the venue - it's Neal's local church, which gives the whole thing a nice, intimate sound, and on the whole I actually think the resulting performance sounds better than the rather clean, precisely-produced studio album.

The execution is absolutely spot on; despite the fact that neither Spock's Beard nor Neal's solo backing bands have performed all this material like this, they really nail it, like they've been playing this setlist regularly since Snow originally released. Or perhaps it sounds even better than that - maybe letting the material sit fallow for this long gave Neal and the group the appetite to really get their teeth into it now this wonderful opportunity had arisen. The fact that they deliberately only planned to play this show a very limited number of times, rather than doing a full Spock's Beard And Neal Morse Play Snow tour, might have also added a certain helpful frisson - nothing like knowing that you've got limited chances to get this right to focus the mind!

Of course, it'd be foolish to write off the possibility that Neal and Spock's Beard will perform this set again in future, or otherwise collaborate again - the very existence of this live album proves that all bets are off and "never say never" should be one's motto. But at the same time, if this is the last major collaboration between the two parties and it's just occasional guest appearances on a song here and there from here on out, this is a magnificent way for the Neal Morse-fronted incarnation of Spock's Beard to bow out, and does a fantastic job of providing the closure we never got back in 2002.

As foundational as the Neal Morse era was for Spock's Beard, I think it only produced two absolutely top-tier classics (The Light and V), with the other albums of the era being good - often very good - but a little patchier. As for the Nick D'Virgilio era of the band - well, I think Nick was no slouch and did a fine job of stepping into the lead vocalist role under challenging circumstances. However, there's no getting around the fact that the band had to switch from a mode where Neal Morse was composing most of their material to one where they needed to all pitch in more to get those songs pieced together - and while they quickly righted the ship, none of the Nick-fronted albums quite hit the five-star tier.

This Ted Leonard era of the band, however... that's got me intrigued. Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep I thought was the band's first five-star classic since V - in fact, I sneakily think it was better than that - and I actually think this one has the edge on it, not least because Ted Leonard gets to show more personality. (Mental note: revisit the Enchant back catalogue, this Ted guy's clearly got something good going on.) The centre of gravity of the album puts me in mind of a somewhat more avant-garde take on Crucible, whose Tall Tales so deftly mashed up the approach of Trick of the Tail-era Genesis and classic Kansas back in 1997.

Just a four-piece on this album, the Beard in 1995 consisted of Neal Morse, Alan Morse, Dave Meros and Nick D'Virgilio, all of them very well-known and beloved musicians - of course, all the songs on here have been written by no other man but Neal Morse himself, presenting vividly his approach to writing 'prog epics' (and later on, we would get numerous of those).

Opening up this classic record is the 15-minute title track and this is one of the most dense, epic, and lively songs that one could ever hear, I am quite certain about this, as the band go in with full power, shifting styles, going through eight different parts comprising this phenomenal composition, and playing their hearts out. Deservedly, this is one of the band's signature songs - it has so many things going on inside, there is a myriad of characters coming in and out, and the band seem to reference so many other classic bands, that the unprepared for this prog fiesta might even get confused. Then comes the excellent 12-minute track 'Go the Way You Go', another brilliant and energetic composition, the memorable hooks and choruses are everywhere across 'The Light', the instrumental sections are mind-blowing, and the writing and production are stellar. 'The Water' is another helluva ride, once again confirming that 'The Light' is simultaneously intricate, memorable, and fun. On this 23-minute song the band dare to display some jazzier and funkier leaning, adding up even more intricacy to their masterful first album. Finally, we have the shorter 'On the Edge', perhaps eclipsed by the magnificence of the longer compositions, and therefore, a bit forgotten. Still, this one is no less excellent than what precedes it.

As said before, 'The Light' is a classic, it is a gateway and a pinpoint for progressive rock, one of its most excited episodes - Neal Morse & Co. present a stunning, sophisticated and extremely joyous collection of grandiosely composed songs that rank up high among the best modern progressive rock albums, rivaling other great and important records from that same period, such as 'Images & Words' by Dream Theater, 'Stardust We Are' by The Flower Kings, or 'Signify' by Porcupine Tree. In terms of significance, Spock's Beard debut studio release is quite essential for the genre.

But wait, who's that in the corner, offering some songwriting notes and a guest appearance here and there? Why, it's Neal Morse! Don't get too excited: Neal didn't come back to the band full-time for this one, content to swing by in a guest role to do a little songwriting on Afterthoughts and Waiting For Me, on the latter of which he provides a little guitar.

Neal had, in fact, performed with this exact line-up of Spock's Beard at the High Voltage festival in London - this being one of those times when Ted filled in - when the band brought him onstage to play The Light and June. Nonetheless, his presence is not overbearing here - he doesn't even sing, perhaps not wanting to overshadow Ted on his debut studio album as lead singer.

As it stands, the selection of Ted seems to be an inspired choice - he may be my favourite Spock's Beard vocalist to date - and the band seem to be in fine songwriting form, mingling their customary prog influences with touches of funk and soul - the sort of thing that they've always dabbled in a bit but which they'd never managed to make work to this extent before. Just listen to Submerged and tell me you can't hear just a pinch of Prince in it, particularly in how Ted Leonard handles the lyric. (I'm reminded, in particular, of the psychedelic-tinged approach Prince would take on albums like Around the World In a Day.) It's not that their past is gone - a Gentle Giant-esque bit of interwoven vocal play, a trademark of their early years, shows up on Afterthoughts, for instance - but it's now set in a new framework.

It all adds up to a fresh new sound for Spock's Beard, rather than a rehash of the Neal-era approach, which means that Neal's guest appearance is able to enhance the album without dominating it; it's an album which respects the band's past (and, via Neal's involvement, receives a certain approval from perhaps the biggest figure from their early years not still with the band) whilst at the same time pushing forward into a new future. Confidently presenting a new sound, it might well be the best put-together album the band have produced since V, even as it's sonic worlds away from that territory.

For his part, Nick was unable to make this festival appearance (or a Swedish one in the previous month) due to clashing commitments with Cirque du Soliel - which would lead to him officially leaving the band some months after this live show, when he realised that something had to give.

That decision might have been made easier by this show - because stepping into the breach was Ted Leonard of Enchant, who would go on to take the lead singer's spot in Spock's Beard full time. Thus, the Beard not only had someone to cover for Nick for these shows, but were also effectively use this as Ted's audition, testing him out both with their material and in front of the live crowd.

A further point of interested is added by the presence of Neal Morse on the last two tracks. Neal's solo band had been appearing at the same festival, with his set occupying a similar slot to Spock's Beard on the previous day, and he and the band were only too happy to take the opportunity to have a little onstage reunion. He's since had occasional appearances with the band both live and in the studio, but it's always been very clear that this has been as a "special guest" capacity rather than displacing any of the existing band members.

For a keen Spock's Beard fan, then, there's good reason to be interested in this release - but there's some caveats to bear in mind. Unfortunately, the sound on the album isn't what it could be; it clears up by the end, but On a Perfect Day sounds particularly poor. This is a by-product of the process used to record it: Concert Live's schtick is that they're able to record a live concert, burn it to CD quickly, and sell the live recording right to fans after the gig's done. This obviously means there's no real capacity to do overdubs, adjust the mix, filter out the sound of the audience, or otherwise give the recording much love. If you must have a raw recording of the gig, complete with the sort of sound issues you'll often run into in a hurried festival performance, here it is - but I wouldn't say this is especially essential unless you want a souvenir of this crucial moment in the band's history.

Though the consensus on it seems to be pretty positive, for me it just doesn't quite click the way the other Nick-fronted albums did. Once again, the band are taking a fairly magpie approach to prog, grabbing bits and pieces from other genres as the mood takes them; a song might be chugging along in a fairly contemporary rock vein before abruptly incorporating a Gentle Giant-esque bit of intertwined vocals, for instance.

It's the "abruptly" that was the stumbling block here: at first the compositions just didn't hang together to my ears, with there being a few too many moments where the band are casting about and throwing everything at the wall in the hope that something sticks. I mentioned the Gentle Giant comparisons quite deliberately there, because that was an influence the band wore on their sleeves in the Neal Morse years but had been downplayed since. Here, Spock's Beard seem to be cannibalising themselves a little; some might welcome this because there's more sections here reminiscent of their first six albums than we've heard for a while, but to my taste - even after giving the album a few more chances and coming to like it better - it comes perilously close to Spock's Beard cannibalising itself

Eventually, though, my ear got used to the sheer range of sounds that Spock's Beard throw at the wall here and I ended up reconsidering my opinion. In fact, the compositions here might be tighter than they've been since Neal left - it's just that there's so much stuffed crammed into here that it can be easy to miss that. I don't think it's a flat-out classic for that reason, but I do think it's very easy to underestimate.

Indeed, they seem pretty good onstage here, though I feel like the mix doesn't quite do them justice; there's a few bits where Nick's voice seems a little overwhelmed, for instance, and it's quite hard to judge whether this is down to him struggling or him simply not being where he needs to be in the overall mix. This and the odd little technical blemish here and there on the one hand establishes that this is a fairly untampered-with live recording (which in some respects makes the band's capabilities more impressive than if the material had a bit more of a touch-up), but at the same time I feel like it could have done with a bit more love in between the master tapes and the actual release to the public.

As such, whilst the album contains a competent band playing good versions of some of their best material, at the same time the production is just loose enough to be annoying, and when the studio versions are right there there's not much reason to be too overexcited about what's here. Worth a listen if you are very big on this era of the band, but doesn't feel like a keeper to me unless you want to be a competist.

Indeed, they seem pretty confident this time around: it's a ballsy move to put out a self-titled album at this stage in your career. Making your first album self-titled is often a no-brainer - your debut is usually going to be the foundation of your sound, after all - but making a later album the self-titled one suggests that you believe that this time around, you have hit on a musical statement which really sums up who you are as a group, and all you've done so far at that.

Well, how do they do? I'd say pretty well! It feels like a significantly more confident take on some of the stuff they were doing on Feel Euphoria, in fact. (Just listen to some of those more modern electronic sounds and drums on With Your Kiss, for instance - those certainly put me in mind of some of the material on that album.) Once again, it feels like there's a significant Genesis component here - something the band had always dipped into a bit, and which they'd leaned on a little further after the departure of Neal Morse and the mild shift away from the Gentle Giant-influenced sound of their first six albums - and in particular, some almost pastoral moments here and there, which perhaps hint at the later compatibility Nick D'Virgilio would discover with the Big Big Train crew later on.

Not that this is Spock's Beard turned into a Genesis clone, mind - though since Nick actually did appear on a Genesis album he's sort of got standing to go there if he wants to, even if it was Calling All Stations. Skeletons At the Feast verges on prog metal in its dark, pulsating, kinetic ferocity, and there the Genesis influences might kick in towards the three minute mark but the journey up to that feels like something more akin to the darker moments of Dream Theater or latter-day IQ.

They're not just going for complexity for complexity's sake, though - Is This Love is a quick high-energy pop song which feels like a modernised Deep Purple number. Is it a little goofy? Yes, sure, but it doesn't outstay its welcome and it's a nice breather after the intense instrumental preceding it. And then take the Here's a Man section of the As Far As the Mind Can See, which offers up Weather Report-esque jazz fusion interspersed with more metal-esque choruses.

The end result is another solid album which, though different in approach from Octane, is to my ears just as strong - and will probably be more pleasing to a greater range of the band's listeners than that one was. If anyone still had any question about Spock's Beard post-Neal Morse, this album should have put paid to those doubts.