TRANSATLANTIC — Kaleidoscope (review)

TRANSATLANTIC — Kaleidoscope album cover Album · 2014 · Metal Related Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Warthur
Before Kaleidoscope we hadn't really had what you could call a "business as usual" Transatlantic album. The debut saw them not having gelled yet as a group, Bridge Across Forever found them delivering a more cohesive sound and later took on extra weight due to immediately preceding the hiatus of the band, and The Whirlwind was not just the return of Transatlantic, but also a return of Neal Morse to working as a part of band projects.

Since then, Neal seems to have found a new balance between his turning out his overtly Christian-themed solo work on the one hand and participating in bands whose music have less specifically religion themes on the other hand; after The Whirlwind he'd also crop up in Flying Colours and make guest appearances live and in the studio with Spock's Beard.

With Neal's creativity spread out like this, one might expect him to take a back seat compositionally speaking - reserving his most Transatlantic-like ideas for this, using other ideas on projects better suited to them, and giving his other bandmates room to contribute. Certainly, it's hard to judge what proportion of the music is contributed by which band member on Transatlantic releases, since they generally share the credit communally - but I certainly hear more of The Flower Kings on here than I remember on previous albums, suggesting that Roine Stolt's quirky, sometimes Zappa-influenced approach to prog had a particularly big influence this time around. (He also sings lead on Black As the Sky and certain other sections.)

It's not that the other members are absent here - far from it. Neal's combination of uplifting, soaring crescendos, lyrics which you can read a Christian meaning into if you want but don't have to, and nods to the 1960s pop scene that early prog grew out of are all here too, Portnoy and Trewavas are still pulling their weight in the rhythm section, this might be a Kaleidoscope but it isn't a revolution in the band's sound.

Since their reunion, Transatlantic haven't exactly been cranking out albums at a massive rate - part of that is probably down to everyone having day jobs with other musical projects to balance, of course, but to my ears it seems like they're also trying to make sure that each Transatlantic release is a little special. As I said at the start of this review, they hadn't put out a "business as usual" album before this one - and they don't do it this time either.
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