SMPT:E

An Excellent piece of modern Progressive Rock! I bought this album being a Dream Theater and Spock's Beard fan. This isn't very Dream Theater influenced at all, however. This is pure Symphonic Prog.

Right away the Morse and Stolt influence is very evident. The first track is a 30 minute epic and is, in my mind, the best on the album and worthy of buying for this track alone. Morse's lyris are great, but don't seem to have much concept, overall metephor, or anything connecting the lyrics in the epic together.

The Bass and Drumming are very good, Pete Trewevas is a great melodic player, though not very original and Portnoy is great as usual and he isn't as wild as he is in Dream Theater. The ballad of the album is your average "good" Neal Morse ballad and is the weakest track on the album.

Mystery train is another just good track, with a slight psychedelic feel to it. My New World is the last original track on this album, and is the best track after the epic, though it's a little boring. It features both Stolt and Morse on vocals. The last track is a Procol Harum cover, which is quite good with everyone doing lead vocals at some point.

Overall this is a quite good album, and is worth it for the title track alone. Four stars.