New Music Corner #200 - Farmikos, The Neal Morse Band

[Scott]

by "bicentennial" Scott

Well, here we are at 200 NMC's.  We should celebrate.  This means that you have been gifted with approximately 400 new albums since CRB opened, full song samplers even! None of this 30 second poor quality sound bite crap from the Amazon preview screen, or a 90 second abruptly interrupted sample from iTunes.  Nope, 100% full length songs randomly picked for your musical addiction, I mean entertainment, and ours...  Now where else would you get such a critical preview that impacts your important purchase dollars? 

But 200 NMC's is also a celebration of longevity or a continued indulgence of those of us who require music to survive.  Which ever it is.. well, it doesn't matter, it's still important...  But most importantly it means that I'm the one that has passed Go!!  Now wheres my 200 dollars? 

Two new ones this week...  First up (Click any album cover to listen)...

Farmikos
Farmikos
Jan 2015

1. I Am One
2. Spoon and Sun
3. The Sound of My Gun
4. I Was Them

The Neal Morse Band
The Grand Experiment
Feb 2015

5. The Call
6. The Grand Experiment
7. Waterfall
8. Doomsday Destiny

[Niels (Mod)]

NEAL MORSE BAND - 5 out of 6.

Exellent choices, Scott. Those tracks are the exact tracks, I would had chosen myself.

The Call might prove to be my favorite Prog-track of the year.

Even though, the album is very good, when you listen to it the first time, it will grow on you, believe me. I was a bit annoyed, that Morse had chosen yet again to add a 25+ minutes track on an album, just around 53 minutes long, but that's how it is, and the track has also proven to be my 2nd favorite "30-minutes" track from mr. Morse (he still haven't beat the one from Testimony 2). Waterfall sounds like a cross between Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Genesis, and you can hear, that Morse was involved in Genesis Revisited 2, well I can, anyway.

And the album-cover might also be at the very top of my list in 10 months or so.

Best album so far in 2015, off course, and it might be a difficult one to beat, but I have a feeling that Steven Wilson is the man to do it.

[Scott]

I just got it yesterday and spun it only twice so far, first time I was kind of distracted because there was stuff going on at the house, but The Call got my attention very quickly.  You're right, this is going to impact my best of awards this year, but I am very excited about the new Steven Wilson...

[Jon]

Farmikos--Thumbs in the middle, trending down the more I think about it

Mostly noise. Nice geetar, but there were points that there was too much geetar noodling. Just noisy noise with a singer that sounds like certain other singers.

[Scott]

This one is on the edge of my musical range, but the more I listened the more I liked what I heard.  Will this make any of my 2015 lists?  Only if the new releases go stone cold after April...  But it will get heard going forward...

[Jon]

The Neal Morse Band--Thumbs maybe around 3/4 up

"The Call" was quite boring, really didn't offer anything new in progland. "Waterfall" is a nice song, but I don't think there's ever been a bad song about waterfalls. Wendy & Lisa had a nice one about waterfalls. There was that one about chasing waterfalls which is kinda catchy. The last song started off sounding like some old school Stevie Wonder, then it didn't any longer. SO, the first song here really not that good, but the next three were good. Purchase? Probably not.

[Scott]

Neils and I hear his greatness, I love the two Testimony releases especially #2 - yes that's right, I love #2!!!

The one miss Morse has released, for me, is Songs From November, which Im only beginning to warm up to..

[Jon]

I like Sola Scriptura.

[Scott]

I have that one as well...  agree

[Jon]

I like eggs.

[RJhog (Admin)]

First I'll say that I dig that player you used.  I hadn't noticed that one before.

Second thought is regarding the evolution of my musical tastes.  It appears to me lately that I seem to be requiring one of two elements for an album to appeal to me: a great story with minimal musical accompaniment (think Americana) or a great hard rocking song drenched in melody (think Sweet & Lynch).  Doesn't mean I don't like stuff that doesn't exactly fit these two traits, but this is where I seem to be gravitating. 

Now, having said that, what do you think my opinions of these two albums are?  Well, I'll tell you.  

Farmikos - Never heard of this band.  Jon says the singer sounds like certain other singers.  I get that feel too, but for the life of me I can't tell you who he reminds me of.  Go figure.  This stuff is drenched in guitar, which is usually good. This guy can play, but there isn't a whole lot of melody to it.  There is a good bit of shredding, if you like that kind of thing.  There is also some riffage type stuff that really reminds me of Alice In Chains.  As a matter of fact, the last two songs remind me heavily of AIC.  The second song is probably the best one here.  It picks up the pace from the other three just a bit, but the pace change slows it right back down.  The pace of this overall may be a little slow for me to get into as far as a complete album goes.  

So bottom line is, this isn't bad at all, especially if you are a fan of plodding but shredding guitar work.  I would have no problem listening to this, but I don't think it's quite something I wanna pick up.  

Neal Morse Band - I picked this up earlier in the week.  Prog does not lend itself to either of my two points of interest above.  But I certainly can't say that this has no melody.  Part of the problem with prog is the endless musical noodling and tempo changes.  I like tempo changes from time to time, but sometimes they just get old.  The Neal Morse Band (this is my first album of theirs that I've owned.  I do have the two covers albums that Morse and Portnoy released a few years ago) would is very capable of writing a cool melody.  Actually, I'd love to hear this band release an album of 3 to 4 minute hard rock/power pop songs.  I bet that would be awesome.

I do really like The Call.  I can't complain about this ten minute song, which is a big surprise.  For some reason, this stuff reminds me of Styx.  Part of it is the melodic, harmonizing vocals.  The other part is the keyboards.  The Grand Experiment really sounds like Styx to me.  I thought that immediately when I saw the video they released for it a few weeks back.  It's the chorus.  Waterfall is a gorgeous song.  This is an epic acoustic beauty.  The vocals are just mesmerizing.  This song will most likely reside in my Top 10 of 2015.  Doomsday Destiny isn't bad, but it's not memorable either.

So overall, a dang good album.  Not the best this year for me, as a matter of fact, it would be sitting at number three on my list at this time.  But very good nonetheless.  

Nice post overall Scott.  This NMC was a nice listen.

[Scott]

I typically use 1 or 2 of the player choices in Podsnack, this time I scrolled to the right and tried on Ive only used a once or twice in the distant past...

[RJhog (Admin)]

I just realized that Doomsday Destiny is not on my CD.  I guess you got the deluxe package?