ONE

Morse's last Album is a brilliant follow up of Testimony. I guess Morse wanted to play it safe and not experiment a lot, making this album sound like Transatlantic/Spock's Beard. The lyrics are somewhat preachy, since this is a concept album of Man's relationship to God.

The Creation is a Majestic overture that begins symphonic, and laters when the drums begin to pound, one theme of the album comes (a synth riff) and gets rocking ... the song goes through many phases and reminds of Spock's Beard's best songs. The vocals are decent (neal morse was never a great vocalist but he did well on the album) and the song is as good as it can get. The moment when Neal Morse screams 'Why, why are you hiding?!' is spectacular. 9/10

The Mans Gone follows with good melodic themes that will later be heard in the fourth song and the last song. The melodies are good so this is a good track. 7/10

Author of Confusion is my favourite track of the album. It clearly talks about the Devil, and I love the imagery of the confusion with the overdubbed vocal harmonies, althrough it can over overboard. The song also starts great in a metal kind of way, and has a majestic metallic riff which later will be heard at the end containing the best drumming I ever heard of Portnoy. 9.5/10

Separated Man is a more melancholic song and I feel the frustuation. While the 'in a cage' sounds simple and not great, the rest is progressive rock ecstacy, you have to hear it 7.5/10

Cradle to the Grave : This song is so uplifting and contains such vocal beauty that gives me goosebumps , even if I am atheist. 9/10

Help me/the spirit and flesh : this is an epic that starts with straightforward uptempo music with nice acoustic guitar fills. It then cries 'Help me !' and eventually finishes happier. A good Epic 7.5/10

Father of Forgiveness : a mellow ballad with christian vocals. It has a nice message and the melodies are very well done as well as its symphonic arrangements. 7.5/10

Reunion : a middle-length epic song that concludes the album on a happy note. It begins reprising the main theme of the album which AGAIN is played with horns and vocals. Fortunately it gets better when the synth riff from Creation is played and some impressive drumming follows. After that it ends with good melodies and very happily. 8/10

While not a masterpiece for me, christians could probably call it that and I highly recommend this album to any Christian proggers (nor even not proggers) .. but I heard that Testimony is much more touching than this one and overall better composed, so you might want to get that one first.

My Grade : B+