THE NEAL MORSE BAND: THE GRAND EXPERIMENT

I only gave this two spins so far, but I'm already regretting my purchase and the ticket I bought for their upcoming tour. Well, at least it will be an opportunity to discover Beardfish.

The first track and the last track (namely, "The Call" and "Alive Again") of this record are the only ones they should have kept; the rest are fillers whose quality lies somewhere between mediocre and forgettable (which reminds me of Spock's Beard's V, a record that would have been so much better if it consisted only of the three good -- great! -- songs it contains). I remember being very disappointed when Neal released the video for the title track, and only bought this album because of the very positive reviews that have been written recently. I should have trusted my initial gut feeling.

I won't waste too many words on the bad fillers; the chorus of the title track eventually stuck in my head , but only because it's easy to remember. This song is bad, but it's actually the best of the bad songs. Another reviewer already expressed his views on "Agenda", and yeah, it's pretty bad. I thought "Waterfall" was alright during the first listen, but I couldn't bear to listen to the whole song a second time (even though it's not that long by Morse's standards). Suffice it to say that the fact that they're not "prog songs" (whatever your definition is) has nothing to do with their quality. And if any other (prog or not) band had released those, nobody would even have paid attention.

"The Call" is, to me, the more interesting of the two good tracks, and features everyone singing. "Alive Again" is an epic and as usual, it will probably take a few listens for me to absorb it completely. I'm pretty sure, however, that it's certainly not in the same league as "All of the Above" or "Into the Blue" to name only two much better examples of what Neal is capable of (there may be many more, I must confess I'm not too familiar yet with Neal's solo work, which is why I'm refering to Transatlantic instead). Both these songs have nevertheless some great moments, so I'll focus on those if I ever play this CD again. That said, I probably have given -- and probably will give -- "Lifeline" more listens than this even though I usually only play the first and last track of that record too.

Somewhat ironically, the second disc in this special edition is nearly more interesting than the regular record (except for "MacArthur Park"; I don't know the original song, but after hearing twice about that "cake that took so long to bake", I just had to skip to the next song...).

I haven't watched the making of yet, and I'm not sure that I will. Bottom line: give "The Call" and "Alive Again" a try, but unless you fall in love with these, I suggest you spend your money on something else.

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