THE NEAL MORSE BAND: THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM

I've been a Neal Morse fan ever since High School when someone turned me on to Spock's Beard, and have been following him ever since, through Transatlantic and his solo career. As a long time student of his music and discography, I can tell you this: he has many, many ideas, all of them great, but he is best when he is collaborating. I love his solo career from Testimony through One, Question Mark, Sola Scriptura and Testimony 2, but felt he slipped a little on albums like Lifeline and Momentum, and even the first Neal Morse Band album The Grand Experiment. For the first time, it seemed like he was running out of inspiration, but I think in hindsight he was just doing too much himself. Randy George and Mike Portnoy have always been excellent collaborators, but they can only do so much when it comes to the lead instrumentation. The Similitude of a Dream is, I think, one of Neal Morse's finest albums ever, and I think that credit is due to the new members of his band, Eric Gillette and Bill Hubauer. Neal's lead guitar parts have never been particularly inspired, and I think he does better work on the keyboards, so bringing in a guitar player to fill that role must have freed Neal up more to work on concept and songwriting, with the rest of the band chipping in on that second part. For the first time, as far as I can tell, the lyric credits go to Neal as always, but music is credited to all five members. It really, really shows. The sheer volume of variance of mood, theme and genre here eclipses anything even on Testimony or Snow, perhaps Neal's most broadly creative albums.

Concept and Story: I know the concept is based on a Christian Allegory called the Pilgrim's Progress, but the lyrics skew toward a more broad appeal, speaking on human nature and spiritual themes without being overtly religious. As a non-religious person, I've never had a problem with Neal's more overt religious themes, but I connect more with the journey here and the more universal application of the themes. If there's a criticism to be made here, it's that the two discs can often feel like they tell the same story in two slightly different ways: man lives in corruption, struggles, casts around searching for meaning, finds it, loses it, is at his lowest, and eventually finds redemption in spirituality. These are familiar themes to Neal, but the enhanced creative force behind this album seems to have reinvigorated the story and given it significantly more punch and depth.

Music: Overall, the first disc is much stronger, but the second disc contains plenty of excellent music. My personal favorites are City of Destruction, Makes No Sense, Back to the City, So Far Gone, Breathe of Angels, Shortcut to Salvation, Road Called Home, Sloth More, and the climactic string of instrumental pieces. As I said before, the creativity is just at a level rarely seen in Neal's other work. Admittedly, a lot of the heavier stuff reminds me of Dream Theater in the gothic metal kind of melodies, but Neal's never been one to be entirely original, and there's nothing wrong with inspiration. I also have to mention, I don't know which of the two new guys does it, but on songs like Ways of a Fool, Makes no Sense, and a couple others, there's another vocalist that takes over on the higher notes, presumably that Neal isn't able to hit anymore, and the voice is quite unique and beautiful sounding. I have to mention also, there are several instrumental sections, usually a showcase for a guitar solo, that just hit that prog sweet spot, like the second half of The Slough, a jazzy drum-piano-bass backing, reminiscent of the breakdown in "Open Wide the Flood Gates Part 1", that kind of stuff has also been absent from Neal's more recent work, and it is more than welcome to return.

Overall, this will hopefully signify a creative resurgence in Neal's work as he opens up and continues to collaborate rather than do everything himself. Again, nothing against that, but even someone like him only has so many ideas left in him, and almost all great musicians work better together. The Great Adventure is an equal album to this in almost all respects, and I look forward to seeing what they do next together.