Progressive Rock
Warning: if you’re a Neal Morse fan, this review may hurt your feelings.
Under the ever-pretentious label of “rock opera” comes the second instalment of the story of the clairvoyant Joseph, as told in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. Sold into slavery by his jealous brothers and later imprisoned, at one point he interprets the Pharaoh of Egypt’s dreams, who ends up naming him viceroy.
This album sounds like Transatlantic, Flying Colors, Spock’s Beard, Neal Morse Band, or any of good old Neal’s solo work. The same kind of production, composition, harmonies, melodies, and so on. Even his biggest, most uncritical die-hard fans will surely recognise it, no matter how much he’s supposedly God made music. And is that a bad thing? Not necessarily — only when it bores you, but if it gets you going, enjoy it. And if you don’t like Neal Morse, then put on a different album, because sitting through this one is like watching a western where the hero rides off into the distance while “Poor Lonesome Cowboy” plays. Only the poor souls who write reviews are actually obliged to listen to it.
The buzz of a fly, conveniently dead, leads us into the opening chords of “Cosmic Mess”, serving as an overture, with melodic lines very typical of Mr Morse. And the story begins with verses you could find on any of his records, since he always composes the same way. Heavy Beatles influence with a very saccharine touch, though this time with the particularity of being a bit more theatrical, naturally.
Right after, the backing vocals of “My Dream” come in with pleasant pop melodies, as is the rest of the track, right up to a guitar solo before the conclusion, along with the cheesy backing vocals already introduced at the start. Luckily it’s a short track, and “Dreamer in the Jailhouse” starts right away, which is basically the same concept as the last one, except that instead of opening with the choral chorus, it opens with a verse sung by Ross Jennings. The second half has the typical mid-tempo slowdown with the supposedly epic backing vocals that are always present in this artist’s work, followed by the inevitable solo, this time on guitar.
We move on to “All Hail”, which repeats the same corny ideas we’ve been hearing for his 30-year career, but without much of the interesting arranging that sometimes grabs your attention in compositions our protagonist takes part in. That said, there’s time to spot another house trademark: after some supposedly epic mid-tempo backing vocals, a soft, slow solo begins, this time on keyboard, which progressively (it’s what prog does) builds in intensity toward another epic peak.
“The Argument” is perhaps the funniest track. An ambient opening section sets up the line: “The worst that can happen to you is that you’ll die” (apparently they hadn’t heard this album yet), which gives way to a motif abruptly cut off by a five-voice a cappella round, later repeated with the addition of musical arrangements linking into “Make Life a Breeze”, with a powerful instrumental development that’s Neal Morse’s real strong suit, though the underwhelming vocal sections come straight back after. A short, slow interlude brings us back to the instrumental motifs and a new vocal round to close it out.
With different instrumentation, the opening theme returns on “Overture Reprise”, leading into the fraternal “I Hate My Brothers”. As a hate song within the story, it’s a flop, since it sounds exactly like an ironic track that could sit in Steel Panther’s repertoire, on top of some fairly tacky horn arrangements that strip out whatever rage the song was meant to carry. All of this gets maxed out by the appearance of a slow coda that serves absolutely no purpose.
“Guilty As Charged” also opens at a slow tempo. The playing is energetic in its first section, and in the second, softer and more reflective one, we get a line played by strings that lend the track a certain interest, if it weren’t so overloaded with remorse throughout. “Reckoning” uses the same rhythmic motif in its introduction, giving it a unified feel. The track squeezes the idea well and makes good use of the undeniable technical skill of every musician involved. The choice of horn arrangements strips it of roughness and power, and combined with the extreme similarity in vocal register among every soloist on the record, it robs it of any capacity to surprise.
And speaking of a lack of imagination: on “Bring Ben” we once again find the vocal-round trick at the opening. Right after, we get another banal song whose great virtue is not reaching the three-minute mark. The story continues with “Freedom Road”, a mid-tempo track — inelegant, mannered and self-important — the only thing it makes you want to do is ask the referee for the time.
Continuing along this vain streak, we get “The Brothers Repent Joseph Revealed”, which, despite showing off a decent dose of compositional complexity, falls into the same bloated arrangements we mentioned earlier. And, once again, the house trademark of taking us from epic grandeur to a very soft, bare section, which gradually leads us into supposedly epic backing vocals — the kind with lots of “aaaah”s.
The previous track concludes by linking into “Restoration” which, after a transitional passage, presents a slightly samba-flavoured guitar riff, used to host the piano-solo section, where we can enjoy the quality of every musician involved. A shame it prefers to go back to narrating the story through some smug verses, where the only thing that stands out is Talon David’s female voice.
The same riff also serves to open “Everlasting”, though with horn arrangements of dubious taste and some rather excessive vocal showboating. And with this rather Latin rhythm — very fitting for a Hebrew story — we arrive at an equally excessive keyboard solo, and a section featuring two lead guitars. The decision to end the track by steering it toward a slow, worn-out finish is only justifiable because it serves to link up with the closing track.
“Dawning of a New Day (God Uses Everything for Good)” has opening verses where we should highlight a rather lovely fretless-bass solo, and that’s about it. The rest is a compendium of everything we could already say about this bloated, wildly over-the-top album. The exaggeration is such that even the closing section is practically incomprehensible, aside from the guitar solo.
Adapting a line from the wonderful Les Luthiers: Neal Morse never stops composing. And one has to wonder: couldn’t he stop composing?
Writer: David Sàez