V

Overlooking their career so far I think this has to be the best effort of Spock's Beard. Comparable to Marillion in the 80's (Fish) to me their career ended with Neal Morse leaving the band. It's like tearing out the heart of the band. Anyway this is their highlight as far as I'm concerned and that's mainly because of the two epics which are sensational. At the end of the day is my all time favourite of Spock's Beard, The Great Nothing is a good second. The last song is more of an epic in the vein of Transatlantic, so I wouldn't be surprised if Neal Morse wrote this. At the end of the day is more original, an energetic epic satisfying for the whole 16 minutes. The other 4 songs are much less, espacially the third song (Thoughts, pt.2) that sounds a bit like eclectic prog and that's not my cup of tea. The rest of the shorter songs are allright though not spectacular.

It's once again a tough choice between 4 or 5 stars so I will have to consult my rules which are: at least 3 outstanding songs or a great effort overall (entire album). Neither of these conditions is the case here. So 4 stars it is.