Neal Morse

When this massive package dropped through my letterbox I saw the postie leave with a much lighter step that when he approached the door. No wonder, this consists of 4 CDs and 2 DVDs in a single box set that weighs a ton and contains 5 hours of music, behind the scenes ‘stuff’ and rehearsal footage.

If you think that that is over the top then consider that the band put together for this included Mike Portnoy, Randy George, Bill Hubauer and Eric Gillette as well as a 4 piece horn section 6 part female backing vocals, violin, cello and full orchestral percussion. He flew out Rich Mouser (who had mixed the originals from which these show was based) to do the front of house mix and the show included dancers, and special staging effects.

But try as I might I cannot fathom of any other way to have done this if you wanted to do justice to his original albums ‘Testimony’ and ‘One’ both of which are massive, complex and wide-ranging musical visions. Sometimes guitar/bass/drums just isn’t enough.

Morse himself said "We really went all out this time. I wanted it to be the quintessential presentation and performance of this music."

Remarkably, considering the size of the set, it is no kind of slog to get through it. All the best progressive music will hit you at different levels and it is the same here. If you want to watch the show then there is a huge show to be enjoyed and if the music is more important then there is no real weakness in two great albums. When you start to get into everything that is happening musically and visually it is easy to just slip into it and let the music take you into some wonderful places.

Morse’ history includes being a founder member of Spock’s Beard as well as being an integral part of Transatlantic and Flying Colours and he brings elements of all of those bands into the two albums here – ‘Testimony’ describing his spiritual journeys with Spock’s Beard’ and ‘One’ exploring the biblical concepts of separation and reunion with God – and in fact the encores include material from Spock’s Beard ‘The Light’ and Transatlantic’s ‘Stranger In Your Soul’.
The performances are remarkably fresh and impassioned and you never get any fatigue listening to the music here. I’m not the greatest fan of Morse’s vocals but they work here and they are more than covered by some stellar playing.

There is a lot here but the way that the CDs are structured you get a performance on every one so that you don’t need to absorb them all in one sitting (although I did).

There is no question that it is a vanity project but for a change it is worth the effort and leaves the listener ultimately very happy.