"My new world keep spining me around"
- SMPTE
What is Transatlantic you may ask?The answer is:it is the prog-rock
supergroup formed by next guys:
-Neal Morse.Keyboardist,singer and main soongwriter of the great American neo-prog
band called Spock’s Beard.He is also the main songwriter of Transatlantic.Neal
suffers from the disease called “overproductivity”-Mike Portnoy called him once
“the factory of music production”.He writes too much and the result sometimes
become terrible or sometimes great.In his music,he tries to make good combination
of prog and pop.So,his musical skills are like skills of good,professional prog-musician
while his voice is typical poppy vocal.
-Roine Stolt.Guitarist,vocalist and main ssongwriter of the great Sweden neo-prog
band called The Flower Kings.He is not the leader or main songwriter of Transatlantic,but
certanly has great influnce on its music.Great lyricswriter too-he is in my
personal top 15 lyricswriters ever.Good guitarist too that can easily play almost
everything.His vocal is absolutely great-clear,wise and calm.
-Mike Portnoy.Drummer and informal leader of maybe the best American band ever
called Dream Theater,which plays great progmetal.Absolutely amazing drummer,but,unfortunately,his
drum skills aren’t showing on any of Transatlantic albums.
-Pete Trewavas.Bassist and back vocalist oof legendary English pop-prog band
called Marillion.He is quite underrated bassist,and his songwriters skills are
good.That’s all about him.
All these guys gathered together to play some retro-like prog with great influence
of Neal’s band Spock’s Beard. That’s,in fact,almost all you need to know about
the band.
Well,what do you want from the album lasts for 77 minutes
and contains only 5 tracks,eh?Nothing?Oh,you’re dork-that’s for sure,if you
aren’t want something or excpect something from this album.Anyway,want you it
or not, SMPTe(really degeneratic,idiotic and banal name for the album)
is the trrying to do an another Close To The Edge.Hopefully for me,it
is not even “great” as the “original” version,but as for the epic structure
of the album it is even overshadow CTTE.Judge for yourself-as I said
before, the lasts for 77 minutes,the album contains only 5 song-one for almost
31 minutes long,two are more than 16 minutes long,one is almost for 6 minutes
and one is almost for 7 minutes.
The album opens with almost 31 minutes track called “All Of The Above”.It is
divided into 6 parts-“Full Moon Rising”,”October Winds”,”Camoflaged In Blue”,”Half
Alive”,”Undying Love” and the reprise of “Full Moon Rising”,dividing by various
jams.Starts like a cool 5-minute jam with really nice riff played by Stolt and
Morse.The first part of the opus-“Full Moon Rising”-is nothing by a great pop
song with amazingly catchy chours.”October Winds” is nice atmospheric melody
with nice,gentle lyrics,but,unfortunately,it is very small part.”Camoflaged
In Blue” is nothing by a pop song with strange and quite degeneratic chours
“Soldier of fortuuuuuuuuune caaaaaaaaaaaaaamoflaged in bluuuuuue”.”Half Alive”
is rather mystical and dark part with strange and great rythm.”Undying Love”
is fast and generic with great optimistic lyrics.All goes into the best short
jam on here and then “Fool Moon Rising” reprise come.Then goes rather strange
and idiotic 4-minutes ending,that includes 2-minutes fade-out,which is nothing
but the awful rip-off of the ending section of Genesis’ “Dancing With The Moonlit
Knight”.
After the longest song on SMPTe,the shortest one comes.”We All Need Some
Light Now” is the beautiful,almost acoustic ballad,full written by Neal Morse,with
no contribution of other members of the band.Srange lyrics that lead all vocal
part come into gentle,almost Beach Boys-like chours “We all need some light
now,we all need some light,so turn out the light...”,singing by so beautiful
and gentle Neal’s voice.Just great song that you never tired to hear again and
again.
“Mystery Train” comes next.It is the most generic song on here,almost pop song
with awful Morse vocals.The middle instrumental break is great,but...I have
the feeling when I have heard it somewhere...Is it something taken from Spock’s
Beard Day For Night?Or from Beware Of Darkness...The copying of
the production of yourself is not good,Mr.Morse.Anyway,it is the only weak spot
on the record.
Stolt’s composition called “My New World” comes next.Great orchestral intro,great
jams all of the way of the song and absolutely great Roine vocal parts makes
the song one of the best on here.The lyrics are great too-they are quite nostalgic,about
a hippie-girl and a soldier who returned to his home after the Vietname war
and sudenlly discovers that his “new world” is not old-all things changed.He
met that girl and felt in love with her...Anyway,there are some great melodical
parts,fore example,great first verse singing with short piano take-just love
that part.Fun,how I thought it is the worst one on here.Now,it is one of the
best for me on here and all 16 minutes of the song aren’t boring at all-great
work,Mr.Stolt!
The comes 17-minutes cover of classic Procol Harum tune “In Held(Twas)In I)”.It
is VERY good cover with great Pete Trewavas spoken parts and absolutely great
keyboard and guitar work by Morse and Stolt.Very well work,guys!!!
Buy this one now.
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?
This is quite interesting,you know-when I first heard Bridge
Across Forever I absolutely disliked this record and thought that guys were
doing nothing but copying themselves.Heck,even the cover was almost the same-that
zeppelin is nothing but degeneratic,absolutely idiotic-designed and strange...well,zeppelin,I
guess?
Anyway,there’s not all so bad,you know-yes,sure,Neal Morse is still main songwriter
of the band,melodies are very Spock’s Beard-ish and all the idea of project(“The
mega-ultra-sper dudes from the best prog bands of the epoch are doing retro-prog
mixed with neo-prog with the most pompeous things around it and the compositions
as longer as this guys can reach.”)is the same,but:a)there are more of the other
members-how about all of these,almost Flower Kings-ish jams,or Marillion-like
melodies in “Duel With The Devil”?Or these hard riffs and almost progmetalic
atmosphere in some parts of both “Duel With The Devil” and “Stranger In Your
Soul”,eh?;b)there’s more,much more jams than on any Spock’s Beard album-almost
half of “Duel With The Devil”,for example,is just looooooong jams,that surprisingly
isn’t boring at all;c)the album caontains the whole pop-suite,which is not prog
in any means and stands close to The Bestles Abbey Road second-side suite;d)the
album seems to be conceptual-at least,the story of “Motherless children” and
“Awekening the stranger in your soul” in all three epic tracks.
The album has only 4 tracks,but it isn’t longer than SMPTe-only 71 minutes.But,the
songs are much longer.A 26-minutes song,a 30-minutes song,15-minutes song and,finally,the
shortiest song on here lasts for only 5+ minutes and longer than “We All Need
Some Light Now” from the previous record.
The album opens with 26-minutes long “Duel With The Devil” consists of the whole
5 parts:”Motherless Children”, “Walk Away”,”Silence Of The Night”,”You’re Not
Alone” and “Almost Home”.Starts with great orchestral intro song turns into
good long jam and the first part-“Motherless Children” begins.Really angry verses
sung by angry Neal Morse’s voice and touchfull chours are reat.”Walk Away” part
is written by Roine and sung too-it’s good-I can imagine how Neal could destroy
great atmosphere of the song.Unfortunately,the verse aren’t sung by Stolt.The
part is very Yes-ish-even keyboards and solo in the end are exactly Wakeman-ish.The
second part of “Walk Away” is almost hard-rocking-in the favourite Neal Morse
style.All it comes into the long jam of the part “Silence Of The Night”.The
jam is cool,with very tasteful playing and absolutely amazing drumming(Mike
Portnoy almost did something like drum solo in the begining).It also feautures
standart Stolt guitar solo and great saxophone(Keith Mears played on it).The
vocal part is short reprise of the verses of “Motherless Children” with more
upset music and good vocal background.The ending short vocal duel of Neal Morse
and some girl from the background choir is nice too.After some “Motherless Children”-based
improvisation “You’re Not Alone” comes-it is good pop song that fits quite nice
to Christmas and New Year atmosphere.It is the first appearing of Chris Carmicael
who played cello, violin and viola on the record.”Almost Home” is the final
part and,as for almost all Neal Morse’s epics final parts it is darn trying
to become “Supper’s Ready” ending.The only one minus-I am quite tired from “Motherless
Children” reprising on almost all 26 minutes of the song and even chours-sund
verse can’t save me from sleep that I can fall into after I heard this poppy
melody from the first part.Fortunately,they didn’t do the stupid ending like
in “All Of The Above”,but the very ending is just a rip-off of Wakeman’s lines
in the end of “Close To The Edge”-as far as I know,that’s the favourite song
of all of the guys.
Then comes the best song on here-“Suite Charlotte Pike”,also consists of five
parts:”If She Runs”,”Mr.Wounderful”, “Lost And Found,Part 1”,”Temple Of The
Gods” and “Motherless Children/If She Runs(reprise)”.As I mentioned above,it
is some kind of sequel to Abbey Road-suite and has no prog moments at
all-it is just Beatles-like pop. Though,the song starts with danceable blues-rock
jam and after the falling of the first take(“WASSUP?”-cries Neal Morse at the
top of his voice),the jam begins again.”If She Runs” has that same jam melody
and catchy verses and the “It Hard” part,which I absolutely love-funny lyrics(“It’s
hard-climbing The Statue of Libery”),good vocals from all of the members of
the band.Thengoes anothe Roine-led part-“Mr.Wounderful”.Sounds EXACTLY like
Beatles song it has nice piano-lead melody and unforgettable chours.The first
part of Lost And Found” is quite angry,but still good.In “Temple Of The Gods”
Neal Morse show himself as a God-his voice is powerfull,and his synth plays
the little role on here.The only verse is taken from “Stranger In Your Soul”.And,finally,there
are even two reprise- yet another take of “Motherless Children” melody and “It’s
Hard” reprise.Nothing else to say on here-such a great song that everyone needs
to hear.
“Bridge Across Forever” is the worst song on here-it is VERY boring ballad,maybe
the borriest I’ve heard so far-it even beats Jethro Tull’s “Requiem”!Portnoy
isn’t playing on here and it is bad-good generic drums is that thing that you
need to be here.Singing is nothing but teenage pop-stars tries to sing good.By
the way,the song credited to “Morse/Prince”.Who’s that “Prince”,I wonder.Hope
it is NOT that Prince what we all are thinking about.The lyrics, by the way
is TERRIBLE and cliched too-“There’s a bridge made of light...”Who needs this
shit???But,the melody itself is really good and in opposition of,say,”Requeim”
it is amzing melody far better than this acoustic nooding by Mr.Ian Anderson.This
is a good song,but deadly boring.
The last song on here is 30-minute epic “Stranger In Your Soul” that even consists
of six parts:”Sleeping Wide Awake”,”Hanging In The Balance”,”Lost And Found,Part
2”,”Awakening The Stranger”,”Slide” and “Stranger In Your Soul”.It is really
great and very complex epic with lots of influences of Dream Theater or Flower
Kings.The only problem is the chous(or even TWO chourses)that not very catchy,but
reapiting over and over again just like “Motherless Children” chours in “Duel
With The Devil”.The epic starts with orchestral intro-the same as in “Duel”
and continue with great intro jam where Mike Portnoy finally shows to everyone
how everyone mst kick asses using only two drum sticks.The first part-“Sleeping
Wide Awake”-is ordinary moody pop-song that leaves me cold,but the next part
called “Hanging In The Balance” has even two strong jams and progmetalic influnce
is in everything.Neal ,unfortunately isn’t singing so angry like in “Motherless
Children”,for example.The second part of “Lost And Found” is not very different
form the first one,but jam that leads to “Awekening The Stranger” part is nothing
but boring nooding.The fourth part itself is beautiful piano-pop ballad.”Slide”
returns the hard-rocking mood of “Hanging In The Balance” and the final part
reprising every single part on here.The ending is very strange-after some Neal’s
piano playing music stops and after two or about minutes it returns with hard-rocking
jam reprising the ending of “Suite Charlotte Pike” that also stops soon and
all that we can hear is bells’ ringing,rain’s falling and crowd’s clapping(not
to mention degeneratic and idiotic computer effect).
So,as you may see the alumb is really nice,but too full of itself-copying.I
rememeber Mike Portnoy said something that guys wanted to do Transatlantic as
the project with its own face.No way,guys.Still,if you won’t say to Neal “stop”
you will be just Spock’s Beard parady.But what a parody!
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?