Neal Morse - ?
Inside Out

file under prog / sympho metal

Winston: And again a year doesn’t pass without an album by Neal Morse. The good man always throws in a candidate for album of the year, or the top ten at least. Never mediocre or weak, a stable fact when Morse releases a new one. ‘?’ is the third album since he left Spock’s Beard to satisfy his personal urge, carrying out his new found religion. The neutral prog appreciator still doesn’t need to worry, he’s not trying to convince you of anything he beliefs and the music is still very interesting. Again present are, behind the drumkit Mike Portnoy and on bassguitar Randy George, but they are not alone this time. Neal’s brother Alan Morse is there, Genesis/ GTR man Steve Hackett is there and ‘Flower King’ Roine Stolt (making this a three quartered Transatlantic reunion) is there, all on guitar of course and on keyboards Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater is present too. Quite a few names right? Delicious for the fans and this description goes for the whole album. The previous album ‘One’ to me sounded a bit too much repetitive but that was probably caused by the fact that it came quite quickly after the double album ‘Testimony’. Morse regained himself, took a more band like approach to this one and that worked very well, it is a attention keeper from beginning to end. So another album with a religious theme to it. Like the two previous albums this one is also provided with superb artwork. Also a returning fact concerning a Neal Morse album.

The album starts off with the strong opener ‘The Temple Of The Living God’ and that song contain all of the trademark elements of Neal Morse. Original melodies, diverse rhythms and very nice vocals. ‘Another World’ continues the album seamlessly and again I wonder why it was necessary for Neal to leave Spock’s Beard. This one could have been put on their ‘V’ album easily. ‘The Outsider’ sounds like a easy song but serves perfectly as a builder to the first album climax that follows with ‘Sweet Elation’. A song that develops to real rocker with lots of keyboards, superb bass playing and Portnoy on fire who also proves again that he can play drums in support of a song. ‘?’ is in overall view an album with harder edge to it and the magnificent guitarists are really a treat. During ‘In The Fire’ one after the other brilliant guitar solo fly over. ‘Solid As The Sun’ is very much in the vein of Transatlantic and I hereby order Stolt, Morse and Portnoy to call Pete Trewavas and get together for the follow up to ‘Bridge Across Forever’. In this song saxophone player Mark Lenegan plays along and where I usually don’t like sax that much it suits fine. A very strong melody opens ‘The Glory Of The Lord’ which is supported by an impressive choir. It fits perfectly in the story and think what you like, Morse really knows how to do things right. It is only a short moment and it interludes the ballad of the album ‘Outside Looking In’. A question and answer like vocal performance here and that adds to the melancholy. ‘12’ continues and here are some different rhythms used, again with great guitars. ‘Deliverance’, ‘Inside His Presence’ and ‘The Temple Of The Living God (part II)’ close the album impressively. Conclusion: he did it again and I will have a hard time with that top ten. A real bummer, these luxury problems…

Rating: 98/100 (details)

http://www.nealmorse.com

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