Back to the
reviewpage
Neal Morse - Sola ScripturaNeal Morse is back and even it took a little bit longer than usual for him to complete his latest album "Sola Scriptura" it is still less than half and a year since he released his last critically acclaimed album "?".Sola Sciptura deals with Martin Luther versus the mighty church in the 15th century and how he felt powerless against it. I feel that the story is well made and I cannot see many finding it controversial since it is not attacking a particular church it is just dealing with the problem the church had back then. Musically we have a real epic! A mere four songs but these four songs contains almost 76 minutes of music. And Neal must one of the very best composers of epic songs today, since all three epics are top notch stuff where I love the opener "The door" most, with its great melodies and tempo changes. I'd place it right among Neal's masterpieces like "At the end of the day", "The light" and "Stranger in your soul", perhaps not as creative as the mentioned but it sure is one heck of ride you enter! With your typical Neal Morse ending (emotional and soft) combined with an absolutely terrific solo from Paul Gilbert makes this dreamland for any progressive rock fan. The following song is "The conflict", which is probably among the heavier tunes Neal has recorded. It flows nicely and apart from one annoying entry (at 8:41 which is for reasons unknown repeated four times) I love this track. It combines melancholic elements with pure rock and roll! Before the last epic things slow down in a gentle and emotional ballade called “Heaven in my heart”, you could call it a breath-taker, nothing special but it works fine. The last song is "The conclusion" which first chorus seems to be copied right from "Long time suffering" from Spock's Beard's "Snow" album. But still is feel original and fresh and it ends with a magnificent melody, which closes this album but leaves you hungry for much more! The production is great; all the musicians’ instruments are heard clearly throughout the album and add to that that the musicians names' are Neal Morse, Randy George, Mike Portnoy, Paul Gilbert and you should understand that this is pure quality. Even though I feel that Mike could fill out the music a bit more than he's doing on this record. This is an album that will grow with every listen so don't be too harsh on it if you didn't like it after the first listen. Ok, some self-plagiarism may be found on this album and I am pretty sure some fans will bash him for that reason. But still, this is – in my book – a very solid and highly recommended album. |
|
| Style: Progressive Rock | |
Overall:
 
|
|
| Year: 2007 | |
| Review by: Victory | |
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||