Progressive Positivity

Neal Morse - “?”

The other day, my roommate told me that eating an apple will wake you up more than a cup of coffee. I tried out the “apple in the morning” trick today and I’ll say I definitely didn’t have any problem with falling asleep on the way to work.

Of course, that might have been due at least in part to the extremely invigorating (and I must admit… LOUD) listening to Neal Morse’s “?” album. I’m not sure if it’s a song, a story, a sermon, a musical, or all of those tied together. Did I mention it’s invigorating? Wow. Yep.

In progressive music, the music is as important - in some cases, more important - as the lyrics. The music here is incredible. Neal has surrounded himself with extremely talented musicians and gives them free reign to go nuts within the framework of his compositions. Well, to put it more accurately, they were co-written with Randy George and Mike Portnoy, but Neal is the primary singer, songwriter and composer here. The music is a bit heavier than his previous work, but not so heavy that I’d call it prog metal. It’s getting close though. I like my music heavy but I’m not into metal, and this is right there on the edge between the two in places. Which is not to say that it’s not still melodic and it certainly has its more mellow sections that you’d expect from Neal’s work.

Did I mention that it’s all one song? Not all one CD track, but the whole thing goes through for about an hour without stopping. The different tracks have different styles and all but they’re skillfully woven together into one composition like a patchwork quilt.

Now, the lyrics. It has long been my opinion that Neal is a good lyricist. Not really a great lyricist, but still quite good. That hasn’t changed here, but it feels like he has dug quite a bit deeper in his bible reading for the content on ? than on his previous effort, One. The concept deals with the tabernacle in the wilderness, the sacrificial system, the differences between the accepted and unacceptable sacrifices and people, and the Savior who did away with the old system through his substitutionary atonement.

Somehow he manages to do all this without sounding preachy or going over the listener’s head. And it’s entertaining! It switches between a story of a cripple who can’t enter the temple (due to his disability) but longs to, and teaching sections that explain a little bit about the hows and whys of it all. I’ve never heard anything quite like it, and I’m guessing neither have you.

Coste Apetrea - “Rites Of Passage”
(c) 2006 Lion Music

Who or what is Coste Apetrea?  That was the first question I asked myself.  You have to understand that when the package arrived from Lion Music (http://www.lionmusic.com), the discs enclosed were all promo copies without any artwork.  So, being the uneducated progster that I am, I didn’t know if it was a person or a group or what.  Instead of doing research first, I popped it in the car CD player (my regular critical listening environment) and let my ears do the research.

So, who or what is Coste Apetrea?  After doing some internet research, I found that he is (or was) the guitarist from Samla Mammas Manna, the acclaimed Swedish prog band.  Cool!  That’s the second amazing thing about this album.  It’s a guitarist’s solo album, but not in the same vein of something Joe Satriani or Steve Vai would do.  These aren’t “listen to me play guitar in multiple styles” songs, they’re full band songs.  The compositions aren’t guitar solo vehicles, they use the entire group and allow for interplay and solos from other musicians.  And the other musicians aren’t bad either.  Two of the songs have vocals, and they sound good (not always the case with guitarists’ solo albums) and they don’t detract from the instrumentals one bit.  That said, if they hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have missed them or felt the album was lacking even a little bit.

This is truly progressive music.  It has gone beyond what I’ve heard before.  That, in my opinion, is the best thing I can say about an album.