SMPT:E

At the beginning of this year, I was looking for some music from a Portonoy project, who is, as we all know, an excellent drummer, on of the best these days. Though I haven't heard the music from the other band members (Neil Morse, Pete Trewaves and Roine Stolt), I decided to give this a chance. Plus, I've read and heard good things about this record. The music is, as expected, new prog rock, very symphonic á la 'old school' prog bands. The compositions are tight and the production is crystal clear. The record starts, oddly, with a 32 minute epic called "All Of The Above". It took many listens to fully appreciate, and lately I realised this is a phenomenal song: intrincate playing, sudden time changes, nice melodies (and a proggy memorable keyboard melody, which never lacks in this kind of compositions), and well keys/guitar solos, specially the guitar one at the end. Neil's singing was kind of an acquired taste to me, and with all those repeated listens I came to like it (there are some laughable vocal parts, though). The two followers, "We All Need Some Light" and "Mistery Train" are enjoyable and much more accesible than the other tracks, even commercial at times, with very catchy choruses. "My New World" (16 minutes) is another proggy one, in the vein of the big album opener, and has such great melodies. Another excellent track. So, why do I give it 3 stars? The closer "In Held ('twas) In I", which is a Procol Harum cover (never heard the oribinal song, by the way), seems incoherent to my ears, and because of that, boring. Even, it's a bit odd compared to the other tracks of the album.

Overall, a very good album with a weak closer. Enjoyable and precisely played, nonetheless.

Rating: 3.2/5