Songs From November (Radiant Records, 2014)
Neal Morse is one of the best known progressive rock artists of the post-1970s generations. He became a household name with the band Spock’s Beard and also as one of the instigators of international band Transatlantic. His new solo album is titled Songs From November. His progressive rock fans won’t find much of interest in this recording. It’s a collection of middle of the road pop, folk, rock, and ballads.
“I listen to a lot of different kinds of music for various occasions…prog albums when I really want to focus on intricate music…sometimes jazz and classical,” says Neal about this project. “But many times I find myself attracted to ‘feel good’ singer-songwriter albums like a Jackson Browne or Graham Nash record. So one day I thought to myself…I’d like to make an album like that! ‘Songs From November’ is that album.”
Morse wrote most of the songs in November, 2013. “They just kept pouring out that month…I don’t really know why…but it was great!” he recollects. “I could’ve gotten together with a bunch of studio musicians in Nashville and banged this thing out, but I felt like the thing to do was to get together with this young drummer named Gabe Klein and work on it as a team. He is only 18 years old and amazing! We had a great time recording these songs and many more. We actually recorded twice as many songs as we needed and picked the best ones. It was the first time I’ve ever done that and it was very fruitful. I sent out 21 songs to a bunch of different people that I trust and chose from their lists. So that was also a totally new approach for me.”
The nuprog of Morse’s bands and others like The Flower Kings builds very much on mainstream rock (with prog being more a quality of timbre and arrangement), so I’m sure fans of that kind of music won’t have much trouble with this, just like so many of them enjoy Flying Colors.