Neal Morse – Solo Scriptura

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InsideOut Music
Produced by Neal Morse

After the dismally boring ?, former Spock’s Beard frontman Neal Morse’s new solo album is a welcome surprise. Once again recruiting bassist Randy George and Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, Morse has added renowned shredder Paul Gilbert on guitar and returned to a predominantly hard rock sound.

The premise of the album is something I personally completely disagree with. It’s based in religion. No bad thing in itself, but, “Solo Scriptura” is Latin for “only according to the scriptures”, and means, as Morse puts it, the ‘fundamental truth’ that people should live their lives only by the Holy Scriptures and not by the dogmas written by clerics. Apparently. Now, I’m not saying a religious belief, influenced album, or way of life is wrong in any way. What I object to is it being referred to as a ‘fundamental truth’. It is not. It’s just a belief held by some people. Not all. But that’s a whole other discussion.

More specifically the album is based on Augustinian monk Martin Luther, who famously wrote 95 theses and sent them to the Archbishop rejecting all the practices of the Church he believed were in contradiction to the scriptures. It only contains four songs, but three of those are of epic proportions. The fourth, at just five minutes, was added late on in the writing sessions when Morse felt something was needed to bridge the gap between the second and third pieces.

At times the record draws stylistic parallels to Roine Stolt‘s amazing Wall Street Voodoo opus. The sharp change of style from instrumental hard rock to disjointed mid-range vocals (which are similar to Stolt’s) between Introduction and In The Name of God is a prime example. Interestingly though, it bares little resemblance to Spock’s Beard, or to previous Morse albums, which is something Neal says he tries to avoid.

With the first long piece, The Door, the six sections are very distinct, very different songs, with abrupt transitions between them. Making them into six separate tracks would probably have been a good idea. Since they play as six separate pieces with no real continuing musical theme, they become rather inaccessible as a single piece. Compare this to track two, The Conflict, and this becomes even more apparent as the transitions between the sections, even with stark contrasts of style between the Latin baroque of Two Down, One To Go and the fast-paced hard rock of The Vineyard, and the heavy guitar of Do You Know My Name?, are much smoother.

Sitting between The Conflict, which is easily the best of the long tracks, and the aptly titled closer The Conclusion, is the magnificently powerful piano-led piece Heaven In My Heart, which Morse wrote in one sitting at the piano. The Conclusion itself is much softer, overall, than The Conflict, perhaps rightly so, but is no less a masterpiece. With the quality of the second two epics being so high it’s an even greater shame the first one lets the side a bit. The playing on all the tracks is, of course, nothing short of masterful, and a great departure for fans of Gilbert, who doesn’t normally play this kind of music, but takes to it like a seasoned veteran. His lead runs and melodies are complex and wonderfully tasteful, replacing the vocals as the focal point of some sections effortlessly.

Some sickening vocal harmonies aside the album is outstanding, with only the disjointed nature of The Door losing it a star. This is comfortably Neal’s best solo release and renews faith, certainly in me personally after his horrible last album, that he really is one of the greats of modern progressive music.

“ wonderfully tasteful ”

Tracklist: The Door (I Introduction / II In The Name of God / III All I Ask For / IV Mercy For Sale / V Keep Silent / VI Upon the Door) / The Conflict (I Do You Know My Name? / II Party To The Lie / III Underground / IV Two Down, One To Go / V The Vineyard / VI Already Home) / Heaven In My Heart / The Conclusion (I Randy’s Jam / II Long Night’s Journey / III Re-Introduction / IV Come Out of Her / V Clothed With The Sun / VI In Closing…)

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Progressive, Neal Morse