{"id":555,"date":"2011-07-11T05:43:48","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T10:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=555"},"modified":"2025-12-17T08:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:23:11","slug":"album-review-neal-morse-testimony-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/11\/album-review-neal-morse-testimony-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Neal Morse – Testimony Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

As something of a collector of obscure rock of the 1960s, I delight in an unofficial set of six CDs called Psychodelicias<\/em>. It\u2019s a collection of garage-rock, psychedelic, pop-sike and other related styles, all by artists from Spain or South America. For the most part, the vocals are in Spanish, and the fact that I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re singing \u2013 those three years of Spanish in high school helped only so much \u2013 lessens my enjoyment not a single bit.<\/p>\n

A sort of inverse situation exists with regard to the sprawling new 2CD set from former Spock\u2019s Beard<\/strong><\/a> front man (and sometime member of Transatlantic<\/a><\/strong>) Neal Morse<\/strong>. Titled Testimony Two<\/em>, the title telegraphs where we\u2019re headed on this latest outing from the progressive rock musician. Impeccable vocal harmonies, ambitious arrangement in the style of early Genesis<\/strong> (albeit with a more pop-song conventional bent) and excellent playing and arrangement are all on full and ample display throughout Testimony Two<\/em>. If the album were sung in Spanish \u2013 or any language besides English, I\u2019d probably be blown away by it. But I do<\/em> know what he\u2019s singing about, and it\u2019s enough to offset the album\u2019s considerable positive qualities.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s preaching, testifying. For adherents of Morse\u2019s brand of owing-it-all-to-his-god religious conviction — for which I do not begrudge him \u2013 this is a winning album, I\u2019m sure. For those who buy into \u2013 or who are at least comfortable with — his proselytizing and<\/em> enjoy prog, this is probably a five-star release. But let\u2019s be realistic: how many of those type people actually exist?<\/p>\n

For fans of progressive rock who don\u2019t especially want equal parts prog and preaching, Testimony Two<\/em> is problematic. Long instrumental passages (as on the typically pretentiously-titled \u201cPart Six: Overture No. 4\u201d) are nothing short of beautiful, majestic, and exciting. Morse tells his story about \u2013 among other things — the conflicts he felt between playing the Devil\u2019s music with Spock\u2019s Beard and trundling off to church. One supposes this is all of great interest to modern-day members of the various Jesus fan clubs. To the rest of us, and\/or to those who\u2019d rather not combine religion and rock, not so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart Six: Time Changer\u201d makes it clear that Morse is a huge fan of Free Hand<\/em>-era Gentle Giant<\/a><\/strong>; he mimics that band\u2019s acrobatic vocal style ably, but his lyrics take all the fun out of it. He doesn\u2019t, however, seem to have taken note that two great artists — Bob Dylan<\/strong> and Little Richard<\/strong> \u2013 were at their worst when they turned to the humorless, religious side of things. And if anyone hasn\u2019t been hit over the head by Morse\u2019s lack of lyrical subtlety, \u201cPart Seven: Jesus\u2019 Blood\u201d should correct that situation. If not, there\u2019s always \u201cPart Eight: Jesus Bring Me Home.\u201d In the former, Morse hopes that Jesus can cure his daughter\u2019s heart defect. (Not to spoil the story, but he believes Jesus did just that.)<\/p>\n

Morse certainly gets points for earnestness and conviction. And in some quarters he\u2019s getting props for crafting in Testimony Two<\/em> an edgy work of some significance. Most contemporary Christian music betrays a near-total lack of originality, especially in the lyrics department (but to be fair, penning CCM lyrics is akin to writing only love songs, all of them about one girl). To his credit, Morse has impressive musical ideas, and displays them amply on this set. Still, for the less Christian-inclined fan, nearly two hours spent with Testimony Two<\/em> may lead you to reach for a Blue \u00d6yster Cult<\/strong> album to cleanse your palate, as it were. In the meantime, if there\u2019s ever an instrumental remix of this disc, I\u2019ll buy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As something of a collector of obscure rock of the 1960s, I delight in an unofficial set of six CDs called Psychodelicias. It\u2019s a collection of garage-rock, psychedelic, pop-sike and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30556,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions\/30556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}