Mellotron Sounds

Until now.

It’s been seven years since Portnoy and the gang shared a studio but their comeback, like the very face of the band, their album covers and even sometimes their subtle, free-form sound was earnest and unassuming—just a simple web announcement:

“TRANSATLANTIC, the progressive rock ‘supergroup’ comprised of Mike Portnoy (DREAM THEATER), Pete Trewavas (MARILLION), Roine Stolt (THE FLOWER KINGS), and Neal Morse (Ex-SPOCK’S BEARD), have reunited after a 7 year hiatus to begin work on a brand new studio album.”

What’s so exciting about a release like this is the sheer blue-moon factor of it. A band like TRANSATLANTIC doesn’t come around every day, a band that makes music so organic that it all feels like a magic kind of improv, that the transitions come in the right places and the chords are changed in time just from how familiar these guys are with one another and how well each of them understands the language of music . Their style is one of light-heartedness but trained musical seriousness, coherency of sound but rich with in-born influences. The group truly is “progressive,” mixing the epic and the raw, moving seemlessly from a 26min. musical tour de force to a 5min. ballad of life and death, just an echoing grand piano and a voice that makes you stop and listen. And the fact that this is only their third studio release, that it’s been nearly a decade since their last recording—well…what’s even more rare and satisfying than a blue moon?

And then there’s the whole Neal Morse angle, the band’s main composure and head vocalist. After a lackluster solo release last year, where his formula was beginning to feel obvious and worn, sometimes painfully so, changing his scenery, and so drastically, should be just the push he needs to put him back on top, into a position to feed and be fed inspiration from other musicians just as passionate and talented as he is. Just take a look at the photo. He’s serious, staring at the camera like it’s a challenge, a dare to make another masterpiece like Bridge Across Forever–or even better, to do something completely different and surprise us all. Nevertheless, you know there’s one thing you can expect from a TRANSATLANTIC record, and that’s be taken away with it.