Casting bands need not be bad!

Then I heard a year ago late at night a little radio. Suddenly, the presenter of a new supergroup consisting of Steve Morse (guitar), Neal Morse (keyboards) told Dave LaRue (bass), Mike Portnoy (drums) and the newcomer Casey McPherson (vocals / guitar) would. As appetizers he finally played "Blue Ocean" ...

FLYING COLORS:

Appetite made me this "bite" in fact. I got me immediately the debut album, which bears the name of the band and was excited after a few runs. On "Flying Colors" to romp they musicians in all kinds of genres as: Whether a pinch Beatles ("Love Is What I'm Waiting For"), toxic Hardrock ("Shoulda Coulda Woulda", "All Falls Down") or more soft tones as in, sung by Portnoy "Fool In My Heart". Even lovers of rock format come in pithy songs like "Kayla" and "The Storm" at their expense. In between, the band also placed epic songs like "Everything Changes", which skilfully interplay between ballad and hymn forms or comes from the opener "Blue Ocean" loose flaky. Again and again one hears in some pieces subtle prog roots out ("Forever In A Daze"), but never gain the upper hand. So the album is enormous fun and is full of enthusiasm.

The bird shoot the guys, however, only with the finale from "Infinite Fire" is a mix of prog, hymns and impressive instrumental parts, which always remain independent and always let the song the air we breathe. A gorgeous piece of music, in which each member is fully revealed.

One shortcoming that never flows, however, when my star award with, the sound quality in this case. The Loudness War scares to my regret, even before this board does not return. Fortunately, the music is as such to listen so wonderfully, which although quite lacking a lack of dynamism, but in the end nothing will change on the quality of the songs. As a little tip I would at this point advise to vinyl because the compression orgies do there is not nearly as much broken, as like the digital sound media.

CONCLUSION:

Even if the two nasty pieces ("Shoulda Coulda Woulda" "All Falls Down") in addition to the harmonious sounding rest look a bit like an afterthought, so they convince nonetheless with its wonderful cycling :-) Ultimately no one has indeed claimed that this splendid debut was built as a concept album. The idea behind Flying Colors was probably the fact that contrary to their other musical home, catchy rock import the members of the supergroup, the true of everything a small dose inserts (Hard Rock, Prog, Folk), but ultimately good catchy. So: Who melody, rock and so many playful structures loves, which is well served with this disc. Caution is, however, in "All Falls Down" offered: The intro might call the plan for fully turned conditioning so some neighbors ;-)