NOISE FLOOR

Wow! this one caught me completely by surprise! Spock´s Beard was never one of my favourite bands and I did not fancy neither when Neil Morse was with them nor their immediately post Morse phase. In both cases they sounded to me like a bunch of great musicians with the right influences but without much of a personality. But everything changed with this CD: the sound here is much more powerful, inspired and soulful. Even with a great diversity of styles included (from symphonic prog to jazz to AOR, and so on) , it still feels focused and unified in the end. Like Aussie-Byrd-Brother said in his very accurate and detailed review, this is an album that most prog people will mistake for a "commercial" effort or something like that, specially if they stick to the album´s opener the spectacular To Breath Another Day. It´s the kind of track that Kansas would kill for at their peak. Soaring AOR vocals, ballsy guitar lines, earthquake Hammond solos, all propelled by a blistering rhythm section. Still it does not sound like anything else, thanks to the odd time signatures and the creative arrangement.

And the album goes on with such surprises it´s hard to pinpoint what they look like nowadays. On one hand the music is indeed more direct and hard hitting (most of the time), on the other they retained their prog roots: there are several mood and tempo changes, even some weirdness and avant guard bits here and there. Noise Floor is the kind of CD that seems to reveal new textures every time you listen to it. What is clear is that they are delivering some of their best material ever. It seems that they have come of age at the songwriting department (always their weak point in the past). Finally they are using their terrific musicianship to work for great tunes. Ok, fair enough, it is not perfect, but it comes close. Have We All Gone Crazy Yet is the one track that I still do not totally get it. But it is the only one and, besides, it is only my personal taste. On all others I really can´t get enough of them. Sometimes, maybe because of Ted Leonards voice or Ryo Okumotos Hammond timbres, I feel like I´m listening to a lost Kansas record of the 70´s. And that´s a compliment! You can hear echoes of Yes, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, Journey, Beatles and many more in the mix. Well, I guess they always did, but they surely did not have such creative, mature and melodic songs. Production is top notch. The arrangements are equally near perfect and very tasteful.

I´m still listening to Noise Floor and still awestruck by it. It seems that I like it a little bit more with every spin. This is the first Spock´s Beard I can say I really love and I truly hope they keep releasing such powerful stuff in near future. I heard this CD by pure chance and I thank God for it. For it is on my top 5 list of best albums of 2018.

Rating: 4,5 stars until now. But I may uprated it to five soon. Highly recommended to open minded music lovers.