THE WHIRLWIND

I'm not going to beat around the bush here, this album did so little for me despite my repeated attempts to enjoy it. I tried, I mean, it's got Neal Morse and Roine Stolt, two of my favorite prog musicians. It's got Mike Portney, nothing more is needed to be said there. Pete Trewavas too . . . this is the definition of a super group, so why did it leave me cold and lifeless inside. On paper, I should love this.

Why, is the real question, what is wrong with this album? Yes, there are some pretty significant religious overtones, not my thing, that's not the problem on this one though. I enjoy some of Neal Morse's preachy albums, Sola Scriptura and ? are brilliant. I'm pretty good at ignoring the content of the lyrics as long as they aren't laughable. There's something deeper going on here.

My first thought was the lack of hooks, but I realized that's not entirely correct, there are hooks all over the place, they're just not very good ones. The more that I think of it, the album is really just a long series of mediocre hooks with a lot of different notes thrown in between. Listening to this album, I just get this picture of Neal Morse jumping from instrument to instrument a-la Buckaroo Banzai with the cheesy smile that keeps saying 'look at how good I am'. I'm sorry Mr. Morse, but your hooks run into each other and your solos seem to involve a lot of notes in succession that work theoretically, but have little staying power. There was a time when I found this band new and exciting, I loved everything Mr. Morse was doing, now even the 'strange off time parts' seem rote and predictable to me.

I'd love to give this a higher rating, I would, but other than the somewhat tense 'Evermore' and the novelty of 'The Return of the Giant Hogweed' this album leaves me totally unimpressed. This album killed all excitement that I had for Transatlantic to the point that I still haven't cared enough to give the follow up album (that's right, I can't even remember its name) a spin.

I wanted so much to enjoy this album.

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