THE NEAL MORSE BAND: THE GREAT ADVENTURE

I love Neal Morse, I love Mike Portnoy, I just think they're reusing the same formula over and over again. The same motif's. Back in the day I used to anticipate every single release from these guys; today, they have so many projects that it's hard to get excited as most of them sound the same. I purchased this album (I will continue purchasing everything they release though) with no expectations, I listened to their singles, Vanity Fair and Welcome to the World and wasn't impressed. So I started listening to the Overture, it had a nice riff (expected), some cool drumming, and a lot of little peaces that I was sure were parts of other songs in the double concept album. I wasn't wrong, I continued listening and even though most songs have high quality musicianship, I could almost predict what was going to happen next. As of right now, I don't see how this album improves over The Similitude of a Dream (Which was already one disc too long) in any way. There's just too much music (I shouldn't be complaining about this, but I am)and I would rather see them get 12 solid well composed songs rather than get 22 with 10 fillers. Don't get me wrong, this is in no way a bad album. The problem is that they already have 2 or 3 very similar albums that have been released and I've listened to them hundreds of times, so I can tell that there's really nothing new with this or worth listening again. Yes, I understand that this is some sort of continuation of the last one, but really.. did we need another one based on the same story? Do we need yet another concept album? It's perfectly ok to write an album that is just a group of songs that don't have to be related to each other.

I would go into exact details on which parts are repetitions and same formulas from the past, but I'm sure that if you're a fan of Neal Morse and Mike Portnoy, you've already listened to every Transatlantic, Flying Colors and TNMB song and know exactly what I'm talking about.