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"Bridge Across Forever" both climaxed and concluded
the career of what should be remembered as one of the premier
ensembles of progressive rock in Transatlantic. For anyone
at all interested in the most fully realized possibilities
of rock music, "Bridge" offers a self-contained universe of
answers, all tied up in one compact disc time capsule that
(if any justice prevails) will echo down the centuries with
its instrumental prowess and trenchant lyrical musings on
"life, the universe, and everything."
TRANSATLANTIC, for the benefit of those unaware of
the pedigree of this prog-rock "Blind Faith" was the spare-time
project of modern progressive rock giants Neal Morse (Spock's
Beard keyboardist/vocalist), Roine Stolt (Swedish guitarist/vocalist/leader
of the Flower Kings), Pete Trewavas (bassist/vocalist for
second-generation English progressive kings Marillion) and
drummer/vocalist Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater (the undisputed
overlords of USA prog-metal).
At least part of what made Transatlantic unique (apart
from their impeccable resumes) was/is their maturity. Each
member of the band is 40+ years old and fully steeped in the
conventions and history of progressive rock as it emerged
from the late 1960's psychedelic craze. Like this reviewer,
we emerged into adulthood awash early in the sounds of the
Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Beatles, Stones, then Cream, Pink
Floyd, Frank Zappa, Hendrix, and on into the seventies and
the flowering of talent that later emerged from the same wellspring
of inspiration, King Crimson, Yes, ELP, Genesis. Despite Transatlantic's
high-profile eminence in the insular world of progressive
rock, it's fortunate for us fans & listeners that all four
band members would step outside their currently successful
and well-established bands to commit to a project as ambitious
and surely as creatively consuming as Transatlantic must have
been. Apparently their shared desire to move the goalposts
of progressive rock further inspired them to swing for the
fences here, and to my ears they have MORE than succeeded.
"Bridge Across Forever" consists of three gigantic
multi-part long-form compositions plus one devastating solo
piano/voice title track. I can't say with certainty, but careful
listening suggests to me that much of the work was recorded
"live in the studio," with some overdubbed sweetening added
later. I mention this because the ensemble playing is IMPRESSIVE
in its precision and ability to turn on a dime, and each of
the three long pieces span the dial in terms of dynamics &
tempo. Progressive rock is rightly celebrated for the instrumental
virtuosity of its performers and while it's no surprise that
these guys can deliver the goods, the thrill-ride of full-frontal
rifferama on exhibit here is truly overwhelming on initial
listens.
Lyrically "Bridge" succeeds also, mostly on the strength
of the good intentions of the band. As most readers know,
Neal Morse left his band Spock's Beard (and in fact, Transatlantic
as well) to devote his musical career to promoting Christianity.
While there is no overt proselytizing on "Bridge," the theme
of each song deals with some angle of spiritual self-evaluation
and the search for meaning in life. Again, given the band
members' maturity and their desire to make a major statement
here, I think they perhaps occasionally get just a little
strident and preachy, but when the final product turns out
as powerful as "Bridge," I'm willing to relax my vigilance
against spiritual indoctrination just a little.
Clocking in at 26:23, "Duel with the Devil" opens the
proceedings with a stately string quartet playing a melody
that will later be recognized as the main theme of the closer,
"Stranger in your Soul." In fact, each of the three "epic"
tracks quotes from its companion pieces at multiple strategic
points throughout the disc; unless you're an especially focused
listener, only after several hearings will you begin to pick
out these rephrases, which are merged so naturally into different
musical settings that they won't be immediately obvious. For
listeners like me, this is a GOOD thing-repeated listens yield
new points of recognition, burnishing the already high luster
of this ingenious project.
Obviously at 26:23 there's PLENTY of instrumental &
lyrical ground to cover with "Duel", and I won't presume on
the readers' patience to attempt to recap each section & phrase.
This opening track is clearly intended to be a big get-your-attention
opening salvo, and it succeeds easily. The string quartet
gives way to the quartet rolling in live, organ/drums/guitar/bass
stating the instrumental theme, putting it through some nimble
variations, then returning to it with greater force as the
wind-up to Neal Morse's first verse, "Have you woke up screaming
in the silence of the night, you wish you could start dreaming
in clouds of white…
" The psychological waters are clearly tempestuous
here, and Morse quickly lays out his take on troubled humanity
in the chorus:
"Motherless children wandering nowhere Feels like there's
miles to go Reaching for water longing to go there Flooding
into your soul- Into your soul.
Thankfully no deities are invoked but clearly the
spirituality is heavily implied; I get a good sense in hindsight
that Neal might have made this a sectarian prog-rock hymn
if he were calling all the shots.
Roine takes over for the next section, "Walk Away,"
to offer his own elder flower-child ruminations on life in
existential darkness: "everybody needs a king, everybody needs
a captain, when you hear the fallen angels sing in your private
Armageddon." I involuntarily grin just a little when I hear
Roine or the Flower Kings, because I always think to myself
"this guy would be lost without the major seventh chords he's
always twisting my ear with." While he's not a berserk shredder
like Portnoy's unbelievable Dream Theater partner John Petrucci,
Stolt is a more than capable guitarist AND songwriter. This
is perhaps not his premier effort as a songsmith, but I am
moved by the poignant chords he pulls together for the chorus
of this section, "and you walk away with nowhere to go, for
another day, turn the lights down low."
As indicated in my intro, multiple sections, tempos
and moods are stitched together in the creation of each of
these three big pieces, and this one undergoes several further
shifts before arriving at the big closing theme, a huge airborne
guitar riff performed curiously in waltz time-3/4 or 6/8-how
often do you hear that? But it works spectacularly--whether
deliberately or not it invokes in my mind the image of the
Transatlantic airship they use in their CD artwork; big, stately,
ponderous, majestic.
After further tag-teaming between sections the pinnacle
is ascended to launch the grand finale, commencing with Neal
singing over a nicely layered chorale group offering a full-pomp
rendition of the "motherless children" chorus. This picks
up steam, leading to the final restatement of the waltz-time
"airship" theme, this time even more emphatically stated,
changing keys once and getting full throttle treatment from
the full band to hammer home its emotive force, and closing
with a gigantic single closing chord, garnished with a trickling
little piano outro as the chord fades in the airspace.
But before we have time to process any of "Duel,"
we're launched immediately into epic #2, "Suite Charlotte
Pike," opening with a fade in of the quartet doing a spiky
little bass/drum/guitar/electric piano riff that dies suddenly
and after a little comical studio patter between musicians
revs right back up to deliver us to this track's hook line
(again sung by Neal), "If she runs-"
Lyrically I interpret "Suite Charlotte" to be cut
very much from the same cloth as "Duel," except instead of
pondering one's own life, we're looking at another and its
challenges over the span of years, presumably the titular
Charlotte. Neal's section seems fatalistic, "if she runs,
let her run, run, run and hope that she comes back." Roine
contributes the "Mr Wonderful" section, fleshing out our subject
a little more as a nice girl led to temptation by a charismatic
but corrupt boyfriend, whose entreaties are resisted by our
heroine because "she's got a friend, his name is Majesty."
At 14:30, "Charlotte" isn't quite the around the world
experience that "Duel" and "Stranger" are, but this is still
plenty of time for several different sections and more instrumental
fireworks. Let me briefly note Portnoy's solo vocal debut
here, previewing the "stranger in your soul" line which is
the big closing number's title and central concept. After
many contortions "Suite Charlotte" touches down at a choral
vocal line "don't want to hear it now," repeated over an ascending
sequence of piano chords, and relaunched into flight by Mike's
drumming, leading the full band into a "Hey Jude" style fade
and close.
The title track "Bridge Across Forever" is sure to
be a favorite at memorial services for the rest of our lives
and very likely beyond. As indicated earlier, this is Neal
Morse alone at the piano, with very light synthesizer accompaniment
overdubbed:
"There's a bridge made of light that crosses between
death and life…" "We will meet again someday on the bridge
across forever…"
The two lines excerpted above pretty much tell you
what "Bridge" is all about, but can hardly convey the power
of Neal's performance. Suffice it to say that if this track
can't move you to tears, you probably need to check your pulse.
With the solemn closing piano chord of "Bridge" fading
in our ears, we hear again the string quartet that preceded
"Duel;" this however yields quickly as the full band comes
rumbling back in with their galloping "we're back and we mean
business" opening to the grand finale/centerpiece of "Bridge,"
"Stranger in Your Soul," the mammoth 30 minute closer meant
to permanently enshrine Transatlantic's place in our progressive
rock pantheon of immortals.
No one who has stuck with me this far can be surprised
to hear me proclaim that THEY NAILED IT here. "Stranger" has
all the soaring elegance and bonecrunching power of "Duel
with the Devil," except now Transatlantic means to offer their
philosophical manifesto along with a rafter-shaking finale.
Obviously at this length there are even more compositional
and performance elements to dissect and marvel at than those
already commented on. The pattern that worked so successfully
before proves its mettle for "Stranger" as it did for "Duel"
& "Charlotte." A strong intro leads to a heartfelt recitation
of the main vocal/instrumental theme (this time Pete Trewavas
gets the solo vocal spotlight for the chorus). New sections
are introduced and get vigorous workouts and clever transitions,
leading to a Neal Morse vocal segue back to a full force restatement
of the original verse/chorus, leading to a mighty, thunderous
instrumental close (the piano restatement of the main theme
after the big close is a very powerful afterthought).
I hope that this extremely truncated description will
NOT disrespect "Stranger," or make readers think it has nothing
new and worthwhile to offer them. After experiencing the entire
CD, however, you may feel some fatigue after such a sustained
blast of high-calorie progressive rock, and sustaining the
superlatives is like trying to keep laughing (or crying) nonstop
for 70 minutes. Impossible. Nevertheless, we shouldn't fault
Transatlantic for fully embracing the bring-it-on spirit of
progressive rock and trying to make a landmark example of
the genre against which others would be weighed.
I bought the initial release which also contains a
second disc of outtakes, snips & snails, etc. It leads with
Transatlantic's note-perfect cover of "Shine On You Crazy
Diamond," which further cements their bonafides as both a
tribute band and "keepers of the progressive rock flame."
It's well worth hearing, and it would be fantastic to see
them do it live (since Pink Floyd never will); the rest of
the bonus disc is fun but basically pretty dispensable.
Unfortunately, Transatlantic was too good to last;
Neal split to devote himself to the Lord and I believe has
subsequently put out two solo releases of Christ-rock. Other
reviewers have spoken highly of them both; I personally have
no tolerance for sectarian recruiting in my life or music,
so I'm out of Neal's orbit now.
"Bridge Across Forever," though, will remain a big
favorite. Let me confess that although I bought all the Spock's
Beard releases, I did so more out of a sense of obligation
to the genre of progressive rock than for the enjoyment they
provided (V and Kindness of Strangers both grew on me, I should
hasten to add). Transatlantic was acquired out of the same
sense of duty, and while the first release was enjoyable,
it didn't really make a big impact.
"Bridge Across Forever" made a BIG impact. This was/is
a prog-rock master class by four seasoned veterans who came
together to wring everything possible out of themselves and
the genre they'd toiled in the vineyards of for their entire
professional lives. Their passion for their mission and the
music they'd dedicated themselves to aligned their stars for
this one supreme effort. The thing we can all be grateful
for is that this monumental recording will always survive
for us and others to rediscover and marvel at long after less
star-crossed efforts have evaporated into a fog of ones and
zeros.
GRADE: A
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