Neal Morse

So Many Roads (Live)

Written by: MT on 25/03/2010 16:58:38

Neal Morse is a musician who has a long history of playing progressive music in both Spock's Beard and the super-group Transatlantic featuring drum extraodinaire Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater and Daniel Gildenlöw from Pain Of Salvation. After having played with many of prog's finest, he launched a solo career and released his debut album, "Neal Morse" in 1999 and now boasts a discography of 15 albums. "So Many Roads" is the second live album to date.

Despite being a prog fan, "So Many Roads" is admittedly the first time I've heard Neal Morse. It's a bit unfortunate that my introduction to his music is a live album, but on the contrary, I get to hear a lot of songs from different eras in his extensive catalog. As a live band, they play well together and are consistently tight. However, knowing what wonders producers pull with re-recording live CD's these days, you can never be 100% sure. Every instrument is relatively clear on the record and it sounds like a very clean recording. However, the production is almost too clean for my liking and the instruments and music sound a little lifeless at times. The keyboards dominate a little too much and acoustic guitars don't have a lot of depth or body. The music is undoubtedly very progressive and you can definitely hear that this is a solo project, however it feels like a lot of ideas thrown together and somehow the songwriting is lost in the process. Some of the songs are over 30 minutes, where it is hard not to get a little fidgity waiting for the next track.

If you are a Neal Morse fan, you probably already have this, but if you are just getting introduced to the band, then this is probably not the best of CDs to start with. The 3 CDs here are a live collection of extensive Christian prog rock with nothing that really sticks out, a bit of a lackluster production and a performance I wish was delivered with a little more passion.

6

Download: Leviathan
For The Fans Of: Dream Theater, Spock's Beard
Listen: Myspace

Release Date 15.03.2010
InsideOut Music


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