Kaleidoscope - Transatlantic

Kaleidoscope (Transatlantic, 2014)

1. Into the Blue - 25:13
    I. Overture
    II. The Dreamer and the Healer
    III. A New Beginning
    IV. Written In Your Heart
    V. The Dreamer and the Healer (Reprise)
2. Shine - 7:29
3. Black As The Sky - 6:46
4. Beyond The Sun - 4:30
5. Kaleidoscope - 31:54
    I. Overture
    II. Ride the Lightning
    III. Black Gold
    IV. Walking the Road
    V. Desolation Days
    VI. Lemon Looking Glass
    VII. Ride the Lightning (Reprise)

Bonus Cover Disc:
1. And You And I (Yes) - 10:44
2. Can't Get It Out Of My Head (ELO) - 4:46
3. Conquistador (Procol Harum) - 4:14
4. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John) - 3:19
5. Tin Soldier (Small Faces) - 3:22
6. Sylvia (Focus) - 3:51
7. Indiscipline (King Crimson) - 4:46
8. Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues) - 6:13

We progressive rock fans are a demanding bunch.  Here the supergroup Transatlantic featuring Neal Morse, Roine Stolt, Pete Trewavas, and Mike Portnoy have released yet another original album of epic-length prog, and I'm not enraptured.  That "yet" is the key though - it's yet another one. There is a high level of playing throughout, with a pleasing array of sounds, themes, and transitions, but it just doesn't gel for me the way their first two albums did.

I think part of the problem might be the length of the songs. On their first album, Transatlantic created one of the all-time classics of the genre in "All Of The Above", where disparate songs and ideas from the band came together in an exciting way to form a single 30-minute composition, and every note felt both right and necessary. That compositional style became the band's (and to some degree Neal Morse's) trademark, but it's a dangerous M.O.  If that magic synthesis doesn't happen, then you've essentially got four or five decent-to-average songs - in some cases bearing little if any relation to progressive rock - whose decent-to-average melodies have to be inflated and repeated beyond their means to try and create an epic. Not a good position to be in.

That charge can be levied against the two long songs on Kaleidoscope to some degree. The piecemeal nature of the song is embraced in the "Kaleidoscope" title (come to think it, "All Of The Above" implies the same), and there are several fantastic sections in both songs, like the spooky jam in "A New Beginning", the exuberant buoyancy of "Ride the Lightning", or the beautifully paced ballads "Walking the Road" and "Desolation Days". The vocal and instrumental parts are all of high quality and consistency throughout, and I do enjoy that Pete and Mike contribute more lead as well as harmony vocals this time around. But patient and repeated listening just leaves me with these pieces, rather than the breathtaking musical journey I was hoping for.  The problem is almost immediate - in the overture of "Into the Blue", chunks of each part in the suite bump up against each other uncomfortably, and in both songs, the requisite emotional half-time epic instrumental that should be at the end happens around eight minutes in, dies out, and is followed by an uneasy transition to the next part. There just doesn't seem to be a strong sense of unity or direction, and both are essential in a long-form composition.

The real treat, in my opinion, is the complex yet focused rocker "Black As The Sky". Pumped-up organ and synth drive a stirring song about oppression and resistance with a mountainous, multilayered chorus. In the bridge, dizzying unison riffs dance over insane time signatures, and each band member trades a vocal line like an oracle shouting out into the void.  Now this is progress!  It's almost counter-intuitive, but it seems like this song and the other shorter compositions have more room to breathe than their cousins that were subsumed into the epics. If Transatlantic's next album had only songs in the four to seven minute range, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Of course, the set of cover songs is fantastic. There aren't too many deviations from the originals, but the band is just having so much fun playing and singing these classics, I could listen to it all day long. It's likely that disc two is going to be played more than disc one.

Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 dangerous M.O.'s