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God, he pulled it off!
Neal Morse is a household name for anyone who has been reading up on
happenings in the prog environment for the last decade or so. Sola
Scriptura is his 10th solo album according to his official discography,
and his fourth prog release after he found his peace with God.
And therein lies a bit of controversy in Neal Morse's long history as a
musician. Saying goodbye to his former life after becoming a personal
Christian, and leaving his former bands Spock's Beard and Transatlantic
due to that, made parts of the prog community a bit alienated towards
Neal Morse.
From what I've heard of his previous solo releases, becoming a personal
believer changed the musical output from Neal Morse quite drastically,
infusing his musical output with quite a lot of inspiration from the
gospel scene musically as well as lyrically. And although these releases
are all good outings, the gospel flavoring certainly hasn't been to
everybody's taste.
On Sola Scriptura, Neal Morse tells the tale of Christian hypocrites
taking the place of God in the olden days, as well as the personal
battle of one man who has a burning desire to give God back to the
people, replacing the worship-addicted hypocrites ruling people's life
with God. The man in question is Martin Luther, a name that should be
familiar for most people.
And the musical backdrop for this story is good. Actually very good. You
can still hear the gospel influences here and there, but on this release
there seems to be slightly less of the musical gospel inspirations than
previously.
Opening the album is "The Door", a track lasting almost 30 minutes. The
song has a strong 70's feel to it, lots of different parts to the song
creating a wide musical variety. Binding the track together are melody
lines and themes repeated directly or in variations, as well as the 70's
tinge on instruments and vocal performance.
"The Conflict" clocks in at 25 minutes, starting off with a sound close
to prog metal, and then going from one musical phase to the other,
including a longer section with strong Latin inspirations, kinda Santana
light. The sound of this track is closer to contemporary than the
opening track, and binding this one together is done in the same way as
the opening track on the album
"Heaven in my
Heart" is a 5 minute long power ballad with gospel touches to it, with
good synth work creating the needed tension and nerve to keep the track
interesting.
"The Conclusion" ends the album, starting out with a prog metal sound
before evolving to a very modern sounding mid-tempo prog rock tune, and
then ending in a more gospel-oriented mood. Along the way, melody-lines
and themes from the first three tracks are heard now and again, nicely
creating a strong feeling of coherence for the album as a whole.
An album with as many long songs as is offered here, can be a quite
tedious affair. But here, the songs are well structured. The musicians
gets to showcase their abilities to quite a good extent, but thankfully
there's few or none examples of extreme self-indulgence when it comes to
soloing and instrumental show-offs. Instead, the focus here seems to be
on creating good melody lines and themes, keeping the listener
interested even if he doesn't know anything about playing instruments.
Describing the music more detailed here isn't really feasible, as there
are too many different sounding parts on offer on this release. It
should come as no surprise to anyone that the keyboard is the dominant
instrument on this release; so if you don't like keyboards, this album
isn't for you. But for everyone else with an interest in complex rock
music, this is an album that should be checked out.
It's not a masterpiece, but a good strong release without any obvious
weaknesses in this reviewers opinion.
Rating: 8 (out of 10)
Reviewer: Olav Björnsen
: : Visit the Artist’s Website : :
: : Discography : :
Sola Scriptura (2007)
Cover to Cover (2006)
Worship Sessions Volume II: Bring the Fire (2006)
Worship Sessions Volume I: Lead Me Lord (2005)
One (2004)
Testimony (2003)
It's Not Too Late (2001)
Merry Christmas From The Morse Family (2000)
Neal Morse (1999)
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