Spock's Beard - The Light

Neal Morse is a man of many musical talents. Growing up in Los Angeles, Morse learned to play the guitar and piano at an early age, and quickly used his talents to write his own music, as well as play in various bands. He had played many types of music, ranging from rock, all of the way to country western. It wasn’t until he demoed an album of prog-rock songs, and sent them to his brother Al Morse, that his destiny was set. 

The album of demos, eventually recorded, and released as an album titled “The Light”, is everything that fans of prog had come to know and love: over-indulgent instrumental music passages, multiple time changes, and epic songs that tell a story, and don’t follow the popular radio format of verse, chorus verse.

Made up of only four songs, “The Light” is the first in a long line of amazingly written, and performed albums featuring front-man Neal Morse. The bulk of the album is taken up by three epic tracks, the title-track (one of the Beard’s most well known songs, among fans), “Go the Way You Go” (another fan favorite), and the lesser-played, but no less loved track, “The Water”.

The title track is made up of eight sections, a staple in progressive rock epics, that tell their own story in each part, but go together to make up one whole. Any part of this track could stand very well on its own. Pieces such as the beautiful intro (and outro) “The Dream”, the heavy hitting “Looking Straight Into the Light”, and the party track “Senor Valassco’s Mystic Voodoo Love Dance”, are all instantly recognizable to any true Neal Morse / Spock’s Beard fan.

The second track, “Go the Way You Go” is just over twelve minutes, but is not broken into several parts. This, however, does not make it any less epic. The music goes through several different mood changes, and still gets played by Neal, and his solo band, even as recently as 2015.

“The Water” is the first in a long line of 20+ minute songs written by Neal Morse. While this epic is only seven parts long, it is nearly eight minutes longer than the title track. Lyrically, parts of the song isn’t exactly over-optimistic, and Neal has even said that one particular section of the track makes him uncomfortable, as his head is in a much better place these days. Once again, the song goes through many different style, and mood changes, and would be welcome by any fan of the band, if it were to return, at least in part, to Neal’s setlist.

The final track on the album, “On the Edge”, is the albums shortest track. At over six minutes, it is still long by radio standards, and was added as a sort of breather, or “encore” to give the listener a break from the epics. The lyrics for this track are said to have improvised on the spot, but it’s the music that really shines on this track, and may be one of the best “shorter” songs in the bands catalog.

The band tried to find a record deal for the album, but didn’t really expect to find an audience (boy were they wrong!), and the Beard definitely grew a lot over the next couple of albums. That doesn’t mean that “The Light” isn’t essential Beard, as the songs are all very expertly written, and performed, and musically hold up very well with the rest of their catalog. As far as a debut, it wouldn't be a bad place to start with SB, as the album is very indicative of their style, and where they would go in the future.