Big Ears

Spock's Beard - The Light (GEP 1995)
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
John 8:12


Listening to this album reminded me of a review I read, in The Melody Maker, in the late nineten-seventies, of Facades by Sad Cafe (1979). The journalist, whose name I cannot remember, began by saying that Facades was like one of the Top of the Pops compilations, available for a budget price at Woolworths, which consisted of a bunch of session musicians who attempted to reproduce current hit singles as authenticaly as possible. This was because, according to this particular writer, Sad Cafe had reproduced 10cc, ELO, The Rolling Stones and others track-by-track. So it is for me, with Spock's Beard and The Light, but it is not Top of the Pops they have emulated, rather it is The Best Prog Rock Album In The World . . . Ever! by Various Artists (UK 2005). Consciously, or otherwise, they have created tracks, which sequence segments from King Crimson, Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Santana, Steely Dan and others (not all progressive, I know). But, because of the way they have incorporated their influences, and their superb musicianship, Spock's Beard devised a marvellous album, which stands in its own right as a landmark of nineteen-nineties progressive rock.

For those of us who loved heavy and progressive rock in the nineteen-seventies, the eighties became a time of paucity and frustration. At the start there was Frank Marino's solo project, Billy Squier and Saga. By midway there was a revitalised Yes and the reformation of Deep Purple and Mountain, but by the end of the decade it was down to Nazareth copyists, Guns 'n' Roses, the excellent Faith No More and a reinvented The Cult. Neo-progressive rock, with the exception of It Bites, had little coverage, although IQ and Jadis were there to be discovered. The early nineties, however, brought a reaction to the over production and excessive use of synthesizers in the eighties, with the grunge bands from Seattle. Their success led to a re-emurgence of heavy and progressive rock: Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes signed to Atlantic spin-off label, Victory Records; Golden Earring made their best album for some time in Bloody Buccaneers; and Spocks Beard were formed in Los Angeles. My first experience of listening to Spock's Beard was not until I heard tracks from The Light and Beware of Darkness played on Alan Freeman's Friday Rock Show on Virgin Radio, produced by Trevor White, in September 1997. He also played tracks from Sammy Hagar's Marching to Mars, Steve Lukather's Luke and IQ's Subterranea (all 1997).

Spock's Beard is a progressive rock band formed in 1992 by Neal Morse on lead vocals/ keyboards and his brother Alan Morse on lead guitar, along with drummer/ backing singer Nick D'Virgilio and bassist Dave Meros. Their debut album, The Light (1995), was followed by another five studio albums, until Neal Morse left the band to pursue a solo career in 2002. Up to his departure, Neal morse was the main songwriter in the band and he wrote most of the material on The light. The only exception being the One Man section of the title track, co-written with his brother, Alan. Spock's Beard were influences by the progressive rock bands of the seventies, but straddled the period between the neo-progressive and later new progressive genres. Their music on The Light is intricate and varied, with a considerable number of ideas and time-signtaures which come-and-go. Catchy melodies, harmonies, changes in style, jazz motifs and John lennon-influenced vocals are constant elements, providing a link with the bands of the past, while distinguishing them from their peers (with the exception of Dream Theater and The Flower Kings).

Track one of The Light, the fifteen-and-a-half minute title track, is subdivided into eight parts, each averaging around a couple of minutes. It starts with (i) The Dream, a quiet piano and rising voice, immediately showing the weakness of Neal Morse's vocals. He is an adequate singer, certainly better than his successor in the band, D'Virgillio, but not as strong as his seventies predecessors like Jon Anderson, Greg Lake and Peter Gabriel. The Dream builds quickly into a complex instrumental passage, (ii) One Man, before developing a 21st Century Schizoid Man vocal arrangement, in which the lyrics anticipate Neal Morse's future overtly religious solo work, "I am the nun and the flasher/ I am the father, the son and the bastard/ I am the church and the steeple/ Open the door and see all the people". Within are multi-part harmonies and Who-like brass from bassist Dave Meros. Amidst the variety of textures, however, there are discernible hooks and these, albeit with different melodies, permeate the album. The influences of (iii) Garden People include The Beatles, Beach Boys, ELP, Yes and Genesis. The instrumental passages of (iv) Look Straight Into the Light, for example, are innovative, particularly the synths, and the guitar playing of Alan Morse is exceptional throughout. We can also hear that the production excesses of the previous decade's neo-progressive are stripped away. Even better is the absence of the future power/ progressive metal.

(v) Man in the Mountain is another quiet piano and voice passage. Señor Valasco's Mystic Voodoo Love Dance is a Santana-inspired Latin section with appropriate percussion and it demonstrates the band's willingness to experiment and vary their approach, before a heavy rock guitar solo leads into the aggressive vocals of (vii) The Return of the Horrible Catfish Man. This fantastic track (The Light) closes with a return to (viii) The Dream, adding cohesion to the whole piece.

Go the Way You Go, at just over twelve minutes, is another lengthy track, but it is not formally divided into seperate sections. It starts in the opposite way to The light with a dramatic mellotron-sounding intro, recalling Pictures at an Exhibition, which becomes a symphonic segment, reminiscent of Yes's Tales From Topographic Oceans. This is interspersed with some jazz-rock guitar and driving bass. More multi-part harmonies are redolent of George Martin's work with John Lennon & The Beatles and America. There is some Yes Album guitar which seems fitting as they were never far from The Beatles anyway. After some jazz piano, military drumming and a Lennon-like verse, the track closes on an epic guitar solo.

The Water is a massive twenty three minutes in lenth and, like the light, is in deliberate sub-sections. (i) Introduction/The Water, with mellotron effects, guitar and Rickenbacker, is an ELP, Yes and King Crimson hybrid. A song from Morse, (ii) When It All Goes To Hell, has some strange lyrics, "And you feel your funny bone crack", and a Pink Floyd DSotM choir. The wailing voces continue to permeate (iii) A Thief in the Night, that has more references to Christianity with, "So where were all of those angels and priests/ Who said they'd carry me beyond my beliefs?" (iv) FU/I'm Sorry, with its incongruous expletives, comes as a shock, and, although I am not a prude, it seems unnecessary other than for effect. It is, though, like many of the songs, characteristically catchy; the backward tapes emphasise the feeling that this is something John Lennon would have tried, if he could have 'got away with it'. (v) The Water (Revisited) has more harmonies and (vi) The Race has a marvellous, funky, jazz-rock feel. It took me some time to realise that this comes from the equally intricate Steely Dan's chord sequences.

The Water closes with (vii) Reach for the Sky, which has crashing Keith Emerson-type piano chords, more of the Pink Floyd choir, some Beatle-esque cello and a touch of brass. It ends very abruptly, when Morse declares, "Guess I never was . . . " The final track on the album, On the Edge, has an equally sudden introduction, an anthemic chorus of, "I'm out on the edge," and soaring guitars. There are backward tapes and the ubiquitous jazz-rock touches. At six minutes, lengthy for most bands, this is the shortest track on the album. With a final exclaimation of, "Out on the Edge," the album is over, uness you have the 2004 version, which has a bonus track, The Light (Home Demo). It has an incredibly sweeping scale for a 'home demo' and is a bit jazzier than the official version.

The Light is, like its seventies forefathers, King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King (1969), Genesis's Nursery Cryme (1971), Yes's Close to the Edge (1972) or ELP's Brain Salad Surgery (1973), labyrinthine in its approach. As I stated near the start, ideas and time signatures come-and-go and ebb-and-flow constantly on lengthy tracks. This is what I love about The Light, its imagination, variety, complexity, musical dexterity and touch of heaviness. My only criticism (apart from that of FU) is that Neal Morse's vocals, while reasonable, do not match the quality of the instrumentation. Even today, modern progressive rock bands still struggle to find excellent singers. Spock's Beard spanned the period between the neo-progressive and later new progressive genres. In a period of half a dozen albums, they produced some of the best progressive rock albums since the British originals of the late-nineteen sixties and seventies. They also showed that American musicians could produce credible progressive rock to rank with and even rival the Britsh bands.

After Neal Morse's departure, Nick D'Virgilio took over lead vocals (unsuccessfully in my opinion, but then I did not like the Phil Collins-era Genesis either) until his own departure in 2011. Spock's Beard currently consists of founding members Alan Morse and Dave Meros, with Ryo Okumoto on keyboards, Jimmy Keegan on drums (who has toured with the band since 2002) and vocalist Ted Leonard.

Rating 9/10