The New Neal Morse Appreciation Thread

Tough to answer because I enjoy him a lot. I suppose he has so much on the stove cooking all the time, quantity over quality is my fear.

I don't care for any of his Covers issues, I can't stand the Beatles and he and Portnoy worship the ground they walk on. Literally I believe they would both eat out of McCarney's toilet before its flushed.

NMB stuff just takes a lot of time to absorb and before its done he releases another project......I need to order the new Sola Gratia album, but I am really looking forward to the new Transatlantic.....I understand that is being mixed now so hopefully by year end.

miamiscot wrote: Sola Gratia is amazing!!! Why isn't it rated higher, people? It has everything one could ask for in a Prog album. The songs are great and the album flows brilliantly. Oh well. Different strokes but it will land very high up on my year end list. Trust that!!!

As a huge Neal fan, I like Sola Gratia, but it feels a bit too much like Neal repeating himself.  I do think songs like Overflow, Never Change and Seemingly Sincere are a bit different, and not coincidentally those are the standouts, but everything else has that "been there, done that" feel to it, and not just been done, but been done much better by Neal himself.   I don't dislike the album, mind you.  I like it, but I don't love it.  It had a very short shelf life in my CD player, which is in stark contrast to (Neal or Neal-related) CD's like The Similitude of a Dream, SMPTe, ?, One, The Whirlwind and Testimony 2, all of which dominated my CD player for many, many months. Sola Gratia is barely 2 months old and was already out of my rotation over a month ago.

I agree. I'm not usually one for listening to early releases but this one has been showing up on my YT recently uploaded menu, so I checked it out.

Also listened to Ross Jenning's interview of Portnoy, did not know Ross had Covid and is in recovery now. Definitely can tell he is not himself on the interview. Portnoy was his usual self, very upbeat and praising the TA band efforts on the new album, he also explained the reasons behind the different versions which are actually different mixes so might be difficult to understand unless you get all versions.

I already preordered the Forevermore Extended version 3LP/2CD set.

 

I spun it again the other day, like I said I do like it.......Has more of that throwback feel to it than say Similitude does.

D'Virgilio, Morse and Jennings!!! Spring 2022!!!