Friday, December 16, 2016

THE NEAL MORSE BAND: The Similitude of a Dream (2016)



   Starting this piece, I should first of all mention that I’m not a fan of Neil Morse. I surely respect him as a composer and musician, I have many of his solo albums, and of his projects as well, but still…
   The Similitude of a Dream is the new work of The Neal Morse band, in which many very good musicians are participating, and Mike Portnoy is one of them.
  The album is available as a double CD, with a total length of almost 105 minutes. It includes 23 tracks, and none of them is more than 10 minutes in length; so no epic this time. The longest song here is the album’s closing piece, the very beautiful Broken Sky / Long Day (Reprise), which is almost 10 minutes long, and one of my most beloved songs.
  It is a concept album, having as main theme the story of a man who decides to write his own life-story while he is in prison.
   I am not going to write about each song separately, first of all because the songs are many, but further than that because I usually put the CD to play and I listen to it as a whole work, not song by song. But despite that, there are some songs I like very much, like the song I mentioned above, (Broken sky/Long Day), City of Destruction and The Ways of a Fool, to name a few.
   The album is filled with very beautiful melodies (which is my soft spot), many interesting turns, and of course excellent musicianship, not to mention Neil Morse’s dramatic vocals that are adding a lot to the album.
   The Similitude of a Dream is not an easy album, it needs many listenings in order to reveal its beauty. But once it does, it will satisfy you without any doubt.
 4 out of 5 stars is my rating, and I’m not sure if it is enough to be honest.

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