Neal, Neal, Neal. Why hath thou forsaken us so? Again! Why do you insist on releasing such amazing live musical testaments, with such conflictingly
weak production values?--just like you did with the Spock's Beard, and Transatlantic concert videos. Is a 5.1 surround mix, and some decent cameras too much too expect, or are they that prohibitively expensive? Maybe they are. I won't dwell on this frustrating fact any longer--I'll detail these production problems at the end of the review. I just hope Morse and others like him, will put as much emphasis on the production of their future
videos, as they do on the performances.
Now for the good part. Testimony Live represents the absolute pinnacle of Neal Morse's talents as a singer, songwriter, musician, and
bandleader. For those of you who don't already know, Morse was the leader of the American progressive-rock outfit Spock's Beard, and later went on to front the prog-rock supergroup Transatlantic. He abruptly quit both bands in 2003, when his spiritual journey came to fruition, and he was "born-again"--Christian, that is. In 2004, Morse released the highly acclaimed, extremely long, double-album, Testimony, which, over the course of 29 songs, tells the story of his journey from struggling L.A. rock musician, to his newfound faith in Jesus. Many Morse fans, and progressive-rock fans in general, consider the Testimony album to be a masterpiece, but I am still formulating my opinion on the darn thing. First of all, at over two hours, it is too damn long. There is just too much boring filler to cloud over the rest of the brilliant material. Testimony would have been much better as a long single-album. Secondly, the gospel influenced numbers and the forthright Christian lyrics, which dominate the album, take some effort to swallow, especially if you don't subscribe to those beliefs.
The thing that makes Testimony Live far superior to the album, is the incredible performances of the seven great musicians that Morse
miraculously got to join him on this small European tour. This group includes members of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and other established session musicians, as well as resident drummer-god Mike Portnoy, who played with Morse in Transatlantic, and also plays for that little prog-metal outfit called Dream Theater. On the Testimony album, Morse handled all of the main instruments except for the drums. He is definitely competent (bass, lead guitar), to great (keyboards, acoustic guitar), on all of these instruments, but having such accomplished musicians to take over these songs live, made them considerably more electrifying. Having seven other musicians (most of whom played at least two different instruments--AND sang), onstage with him, allowed the complex arrangements of the Testimony songs to be fully realized, and usually improved upon.
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