THE NEAL MORSE BAND: THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM

Neil Morse knows how to make music. This is IMO the best album he has made (and the best made on 2016). He writes strong melodies. He knows how to create a "conceptual album", by using intelligent transitions, combining themes and returning repeatedly to many of them. He choose great musicians to play with too. Each musician on this album is a great one and masters his own instrument. In a very "Pink Floyd's style, he chooses the right sonority for each album's moment. Four of the musicians take leather voice in different moments of this album. Like Ian Anderson on his current albums , he knows when he needs another voice to reach some high notes. Mike Portnoy doesn't need a justification to be here. Randy George is a fantastic bass player. Bill Hubauer sounds great on keyboards and on voice. And Eric Gillette combines a great voice (singing with great skill most of high voice parts) and guitar skills that reminds Petrucci a great choice to play with. Saxes, trumpets, violin and a trio of female singers complete this wonderful team. Singing and instrumental parts combination is well done. There are not long instrumental solos, neither are there hard to listen and overloaded lyric pieces. Some tunes ("So far gone", "Broken sky", "Slave to your mind"), are great. "Overture" and "Confrontation" are great "revisions" of some great tunes of the album. The album's ending songs (Broken sky/ Long day) shows THE way to "build an epic", it goes up, up and even up. Love the way they take turns in singing to get the feeling of always going up and how each voice is firm and warm at the same time. OK, Morse insists again and again on preaching about his mythical guru, but who cares? Since "I am he, as you are he, as you are me and we are all together" and "No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low"(1967), I don't care much about the lyrics, I just enjoy the music. My favorite song goes: "A seasoned witch will call you from the depths of your disgrace" (1972) and for 50 years I haven't know what that means.

Summarizing: An album to buy right now.