ONE

This is the second album by Neal after leaving the Spock's Beard. As the first "Testimony" I find that the music is without inspiration, forced to be built up in a fixed way. It seems as Neal composes his music always in the same manner, almost monotone. Not always the biggest mind of a group, when separated gives good results. The good examples are infact very rare: surely Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and Roger Waters are in a good position, but many others, as Fish, Phil Collins and David Gilmour, are not. It seems as, without confrontation among different composers of the band, they are forced to give up fantasy and imagination. So is Neal Morse in his "solo" projects. The presence of Mike Portnoy on the drums is another proof of this: Mike is not very suitable for this kind of music and you can feel it along the tracks, because his strong shots and his fast breaks and fills are far away from Nick D'Virgilio refined drumming. It comes out an album which is boring, always on the same smooth way, without new ideas and shocks. Someone cals it "meat loaf prog" and I agree...