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The postmodern Christian Story-telling Album of the Year

Neal Morse - "ONE"

We’ve been talking a lot in the emerging church about telling stories instead of propositional statements as our form of gospel-telling (following what seems to us as the model given in Scripture). We’ve been also talking a lot about using the arts to do so.

Well, if you like rock music, and you like epic story-telling, then have I an album to recommend to you.

Neal Morse has been recognized critically as one of the greatest progressive rock artists of the past decade. He headed up the band Spock’s Beard (which has released two albums subsequent to Morse's departure). Spock's Beard was the key band in the 90's that revived the prog rock genre (a genre that had lain dormant since the ‘70s). Morse then converted to Christianity and is now using his talents at song-writing and expert musicianship for the purpose of telling Christian stories (of course, for fans of Spock’s Beard, we saw this happening before the launch of his solo career—the double-CD concept album “Snow” was an allegory of messianic proportions, as were a few of the epic songs on earlier Spock’s Beard albums).

Morse’s latest release, ONE, tells the sweeping tale of the union, separation, and reunion of humanity with God. This album features not only the tremendous artistic diversity of Neal Morse (he sings, plays keyboards and guitars), but also the superior rock drumming of Mike Portnoy (leader of the prog-metal band Dream Theater and arguably the greatest rock drummer of our day--Mike's in the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame and has won 21 Modern Drummer Magazine Reader's Poll Awards including: Best Progressive Rock Drummer [10 years in a row], and Best Clinician [twice]). ONE also features the guitar skills of Phil Keaggy (perhaps one of the most admired guitarists in music today) offering an extended acoustic guitar solo (and also singing in a duet with Morse on one song).

Listening to this album is like attending a rock opera. Drama is found in the story telling; drama is found in the musical themes repeated so that you feel the weight of the story. It’s hard to define Morse’ musical style, because the variety of sounds that Morse offers to the listener defies narrowly defining him and would not do him justice. Think of the best of prog legends Pink Floyd, old-time Genesis, Kansas, Yes, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer…add the best of Rich Mullins or Michael W. Smith from the Christian sector…add the kind of rock-opera feel that Transiberian Orchestra has accomplished with their Christmas albums…and then add the pop-music sensibilities and sophistication of The Beatles at their creative height and you are just scratching the surface of what you’ll be hearing.

The first composition, “The Creation” (an 18 minute piece in 4 movements: “One Mind,” “In A Perfect Light,” “Where Are You?” and “Reaching From the Heart”) (Listen to many parts from "THE CREATION" here (2:18)) tells the story of how God and “the man” were at one time of “one mind,” with full orchestration accompanying Portnoy’s tremendous drumming and the keyboards, guitars and vocals of Morse telling us, “all creation in full diversity…was only one.” The music later shifts to sorrow when we hear God screaming out in agony, “Why? Why are you hiding? You were ashamed, you fled my eyes! I gave you life, and all that I wanted was just one thing. But you chose to lie!” At first, I thought "Is God really ever this anguished?" Then I realized I never really wondered or sought to feel (viscerally) how God felt at that moment when humanity decided they would turn from him and do things on their own.

The story then shifts to the man’s point of view on the next song, “The Man’s Gone.” (Listen to a sample from "THE MAN'S GONE" here (0:30)) Morse immediately shifts the story to today: “In the stocks he made a killing, invented games he kept winning, but really never quite fulfilling, on who he really is. The man’s gone to make his way alone. The man’s gone to turn his heart to stone.”

The next song, “Author of Confusion” (Listen to a sample from "Author of Confusion" here (2:02))tells how there is another voice other than God’s seeking to keep the man from hearing God’s voice. The song starts out as an one of the hardest rock instrumentals Morse has ever written, and then it shifts into a harmonious vocal on how the Author of Confusion’s “aim is to confound.” Then in the middle of this hard rock song comes a very sweet section, where God is heard singing, “How long will you stay tied to the mast? How long ‘til you reach for me at last? Aren’t you tired of living in the cold? How long until you come and claim the  gold?” But the cacophonous confusion of the hard part of the song wins in the end. How real this depicts spiritual struggle…the man hears for a moment the voice of God, but the cacophony of life and of Satan’s lies drowns it out. Very well done.

The next epic composition follows, "The Separated Man" (clocking in at over 17 minutes—and every minute a delight). (Listen to the complete radio-single edit of "THE SEPARATED MAN" here (4:53)) It is split up into four sections—(1) “I’m in a Cage” is a pop-rock song as good as any on the radio. It moves into an atmospheric section with Egyptian sounds, (2) “I am the Man,” which portrays man’s determination to be autonomous. “I can’t see your throne, so I will build my own. I will build it high and tall, the world will see I don’t need you at all…I am what I say I am; I am the man.” Yet God’s voice breaks through again, singing, “One hope, one life, one eternal fact—you’re a part of me, and I want you back.” The song then shifts tempos again with a reprise of (3) “The Man’s Gone,” in which we are treated to Phil Keaggy’s exquisite acoustic guitar playing. This alone is worth the cost of the CD (Listen to a segment of Keaggy's guitar solo (edited out of the single) from "THE SEPARATED MAN" here (1:14)). Then we see a glimmer of hope: The “man” sings (in part 4) “Something within me remembers, deep within my heart; I remember the feeling together, when everything was part of my world, and I was part of everything; I felt like a child of the King.”

The next song, "Cradle to the Grave" (Listen to the complete radio edit of "Cradle to the Grave" here (4:39)), is a ballad, featuring a duet between “the man” (sang by Morse) and God (sang by Keaggy). The man sings woefully, “How I wish I could be relieved; Fall on God’s doorstep and be received; But it seems he doesn’t care for me anymore; So I’ll be on my way: Live from the cradle from the grave; On my own.” The reply from God brings a tear to your eye, as he tells the truth of the situation: “How I wish to be reconciled; That you would just love me with the heart of a child; But it seems you never want me around anymore; So you can have your way: Live from the cradle to the grave; Far from home.”

The next song, "Help/The Spirit and the Flesh" (Listen to a sample from "HELP/THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH" here (1:57)), is the pleading prayer of the man in a song with a Latin beat. He sings, “Help me, I have fallen and I can’t get up; Help me, I’ve used razors to heal me where I’m cut.” In another very moving moment on the album, about in the middle of the song we hear the man just repeating over and over in despair, “Help me…Help me…Help me…” and then the song changes tempo and melody as God says, “I have heard you crying in the night…I have loved you since before your birth; Now I’ll dwell  among you on the earth; I’ll send my son…He will raise the dead, the starving shall be fed; he will take your pain, your suffering and shame; He will span the crest between the spirit and the flesh.” Not only good music, but good theology!

“Father of Forgiveness” (Listen to a sample from "FATHER OF FORGIVENESS" here (1:32)), a ballad with piano and strings, looks at the story from another angle: that of the Prodigal Son. “Oh Father, I’ve returned, the one who left alone; And you give me your kingdom, and tell me it’s my own; And I see your open arms, and I know that I have found my place of rest.”

The Album ends with the triumph of “Reunion” (another epic composition of 9 minutes in three movements, “No Separation,” “Grand Finale,” and “Make Us One.”) With the musical theme of the album repeated, but more upbeat and including horns to convey joy and jubilation, Morse sings, “Now the way is open for us; A sacrifice made to restore us; To bring us back to the way we used to be…One heart changing full and free; One love forging unity.” The song builds and builds to a crescendo (the “Grand Finale”)—a wall of sound featuring the double-bass drumming expertise of Mike Portnoy precisely hitting every drum and cymbal as only he can (Listen to a sample of Portnoy's drumming from "REUNION" here (0:28)). Then the song shifts completely to the slow tempo of a worship chorus—“One heart—One voice—One love—One spirit; On our knees with open arms we worship in one spirit; Make us ONE!” (Listen to a sample of "Make Us One" from "REUNION" here (0:25))

As you can tell (if you took the time to read this entire review), I think that this is possibly the best album to come out in a long time. It tells the STORY of Christianity, not just the PROPOSITIONS of Christianity. And in doing so, it is very effective in moving both heart and mind.

Neal Morse Website

"Prog Rock" page here at vanguardchurch.com

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