SPOCK'S BEARD — The Light (review)

SPOCK'S BEARD — The Light album cover Album · 1995 · Non-Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
adg211288
The Light (1995) is the debut full-length studio album by US progressive rock band Spock's Beard. This album sees Spock's Beard in what could almost be considered a prototype form for what was to come later. The band has most of its core line-up already at this point having made an early bassist change from John Ballard to Dave Meros, but they don't yet have Japanese keyboardist Ryo Okumoto in their ranks, so most of the Spock's Beard duties normally assigned to him are instead handled by band leader Neal Morse.

The Light only contains four tracks, most of them epics and two of them prog suites. The writing is reflective of a young band in that it's not as refined as later material, but oozes youthful passion, though also anger in a certain part of The Water that may seem out of place on a progressive rock record and certainly has since become a source of embarrassment for Neal Morse, a man who later become a born again Christian. The lyrics can also be noted for their humour, perhaps more so than any other Spock's Beard release. This is evidenced especially in the title track The Light, which became the band's signature song, where you get movements of the suite with titles like Señor Valasco's Mystic Voodoo Love Dance and The Return of the Horrible Catfish Man.

Spock's Beard has always seemed to be pigeon-holed in the symphonic prog sub-genre of progressive rock but for their most part I don't relate their discography to this style of music and associate it more with Neal Morse's prog solo work and that with the band Transatlantic. On The Light it's more appropriate, but the band would later prove to be more eclectic than they are often given credit for, with some albums being much heavier than this one, although like all Spock's Beard albums, there's at least a few moments where their heavier and hard rocking side rears its head. The Light though, remains a favourite of mine, like many fans for its title track especially. Of the two suites it is the better one, but I do like The Water as well. The FU/I'm Sorry bit, which sees Morse swearing like a madman, does indeed seem out of kilter with how the music sounds though. The other two tracks are also very good.

The Light could have stood to have been a little more polished, but it makes up for what it lacks there in charm. I cannot quite consider it a top tier Spock's Beard release because of noted faults, but it's one I'm personally very attached to and find myself drawn to more than many other, more technically accomplished Spock's Beard releases.
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