SNOW

One thing I've learnt in 40-odd years of listening to music is that it is all personal opinion. Nobody is right and nobody is wrong. You like what you like. Spock's Beard's epic "Snow" album being a case in point that seems to polarise opinion into the "all time great" camp or the "also ran" camp with relatively few people in between.

Where do I stand? I think this is arguably the finest album by anybody ever - that's where I stand. More than 2 years since I first heard it and many plays later the album still extracts an emotional response from me quite unlike any other album.

This is the last album made by Spock's Beard before Neal Morse, their singer, song writer and general driving force left to pursue a solo career. His arrangements may often have you thinking that it reminds you of this or that other band, and he doesn't hide the fact that he draws inspiration from the likes of Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant to name but a few. This aspect of his work stops me from calling him a true genius but nevertheless much of his work has originality and I consider him to be an immensely gifted talent as a songwriter, composer and musical arranger.

It is not that the individual tracks are so wonderful (although some are), but this album tells a story from beginning to end and each track is just so perfect for its part in the plot. The band demonstrates consummate ability to play so many different styles from simple voice and acoustic guitar to hard rock. Most tracks are fairly short but many run into each other, or are linked by a short recurrent theme, to amplify the "single work" feel. This is definitely a "concept" album and you really should try to listen to the complete album every time if possible because this really is a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

The story is of an albino freak, known as "Snow", with a gift for seeing inside people's minds and wanting to help the needy, a bit of a messiah. He rises from obscurity to great popularity until he forgets the needy people to pursue his own ambitions but, spurned by the girl he loves, it all goes wrong and he ends up "on the street" himself and sees the error of his ways. I use the word "messiah" deliberately as there is no doubt that there are strong religious undertones to this work but it is not "in your face" as in Neal Morse's recent solo work.

The album opens with voice/acoustic guitar "Made Alive" then quickly slips into a loud, rocky instrumental "Overture" which is quite clever - it is nothing more than a collection of excerpts of instrumental riffs from various tracks across the album but blended together very skilfully.

Subsequent tracks almost alternate between the quiet, melodic to the loud, heavy, rocky - from the wonderful classical sounding piano solo at the end of "Love beyond words" to "Devil's got my throat", an excellent rocky track.

From track 8 to the end of CD1 is just pure brilliance even as individual tracks. "Open Wide the floodgates" is an all time masterpiece, it contains a guitar solo that is only about 10 seconds long but is so perfect it has me squirming with delight! And then when the singing returns they have a wailing woman behind the vocals ( a bit Floyd "Great gig in the sky-ish?") that just cracks me up. This is followed by "Open the Gates Part 2" which ends unexpectedly and brilliantly with beautiful vocal harmonies which will return as the album climaxes towards the end of CD2.

Then the mood switches to the sombreness of "Solitary Soul". A beautiful melancholy track that ends with a superb guitar solo which I wish was longer. Nevertheless it merges seamlessly into another masterpiece - "Wind at my back". If you listen to the lyrics, this track is the one that lets you know the writer is into God. It is also, in my humble opinion, probably the most beautiful simple, shortish song (i.e. as opposed to the more elaborate longer stuff I'm more usually into) I have ever heard.

CD2 Starts with a second overture, and then the subsequent tracks are, taken in isolation, probably the weakest on the album but they are all ideal for their purpose in the story. Actually track 8 "All is vanity" is particularly good and is mostly a marvellous keyboard solo that starts as the lovely piano solo from CD1 again but this time on the synth.

The story reaches its climax, by way of short reprises of some previous tracks, as Snow's life collapses - finishing with a Ryo Okumoto keyboard solo that is very reminiscent of Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

After this crescendo a big chord stops it all and we're back to acoustic guitar and voice with the beautiful "I will go" as order is restored to Snow's life. This builds things up again with wonderful harmonies (the same ones introduced in "Open the gates part 2") and then moves into the finale.

This is "Made Alive again/Wind at my back" which is the opening track repeated but instead of rapidly switching to "Overture" as in track 1, it blends into a reprise of "Wind at my back". This time they just build this and build it until I almost cannot bear it, it is just SO good. Right at the very end Morse goes over the top a bit, well that's an English viewpoint, it'll be normal for Americans - you'll recognise what I mean. It is the one cringy bit of it all.

From my list of candidates for greatest album of all time this is the only one that is not from the UK late 1960s/1970s prog rock scene and it probably IS my no.1. I urge you to give it a try, I can't begin to understand why anyone should not be knocked out by this album but as I said at the start - music is all opinion and nobody is going to make me change mine.