NOISE FLOOR

'Noise Floor' from 2018 is the third Spock's Beard album featuring Ted Leonard as the lead vocalist, and thirteenth overall, once again featuring frequent post-Neal Morse collaborators John Boegehold and Stan Ausmus, responsible for the writing and production of much of the material on here. The follow-up to the excellent 'The Oblivion Particle' from 2015 is an album that is much more song-oriented and definitely less sophisticated sonically and conceptually. In fact, 'Noise Floor' almost feels like a somewhat random compilation of selected studio recordings from a pool of choices, a part of which represent the main disc and a few more selected for the four-track bonus disc titled 'Cutting Room Floor'.

The overall sound of the album can be described as a logical continuation of what the previous two albums had offered to the table, however, much less "attractive" as 'Noise Floor' features an array of songs that are just not very memorable, even if they are well-played and sometimes carry some very good melodies and fine playing. The contribution of Ryo Okumoto is definitely noteworthy as his keys drive many of the songs, while the guest appearance of Nick D'Virgilio could hardly be overlooked. The band seems to have had less poignant ideas this time around, which might also be the reason why they had seemingly gone on a hiatus following the release of 'Noise Floor', also leading to the formation of off-shoot band Pattern-Seeking Animals. The album is good but that might be just about it, Spock's Beard have had much stronger and more exciting material over the course of their history.