THE NEAL MORSE BAND: THE GREAT ADVENTURE

I'm shocked to see this is rated significantly higher that TSOAD. I considered that album to be genius and to rank among Neal Morse's very best work, regardless of band. I can't think of another release by him that was clearly better.

Having given it 10 listens (the minimum needed to render a legitimate grade, IMO) I can say this about TGA: it's just TSOAD (but not as good). Honestly, it's exactly what you'd expect of the exact same musicians tackling part II of an epic story they created only a couple years earlier.

All the stuff that was in TSOAD can be found here, in pretty much the same order. But nowhere does it work quite as well as it did the first time. The intro isn't as effective. The "narrator" parts that often bridge songs together aren't quite as compelling. The story itself is denser, harder to follow. The "charming" or "whimsical" parts aren't as fun or infectious.

None of it is bad; it's all competent and has all the elements that these guys are capable of. But it has zero surprise and nothing new. I would give TSOAD 5 stars without hesitation and TGA is a 3, maybe a 3.5