After a few recent listens, I am pretty comfortable now calling Innocence and Danger the 3rd best album the NMB have done, behind the obvious (for me) number 1 in Similitude and The Grand Experiment.
Even though I still find the running order a bit off, I do think Beyond the Years is one of the best super long epics Neal has even been a part of (whether it be NMB, solo, TA or Spock's), and The Way It Had to Be and Bird on a Wire are legit top tier songs as well. A few minor quibbles aside, like me not being overly wild about the verse melodies in Do It All Again or finding some of the lyrics in Not Afraid Part 2 a bit too cheesy at times, almost everything else ranges from good to very good. I wouldn't call the album as a whole a home run, but it's a stand-up triple. 
I know the defenders of The Great Adventure will rush in to talk that one up (and for me, it is very good, just the clear 4th best out of 4), but what do other NMB fans think?
I'm one of those big Great Adventure fans, and that one is still #1 for me.
Innocence & Danger is probably in a competition for #2 with The Grand Experiment. I don't think anything beats the first and last songs of TGE, but I&D is more consistent and there's more of it (two features that don't often go hand-in-hand). To me, the weak link, to the extent there is one, is actually Not Afraid Pt. 1. Just feels a bit long for what it is. I love both epics and actually really, really like the lyrics on Not Afraid, Pt. 2. I also think Your Place in the Sun is really cool. I tend to be bearish in my ranking of new albums, so right now I'd still have TGE at #2 and I&D at #3, but that's a close call and could easily change with more time.
I'm a bit anomalous in that I put TSOAD last among the NMB albums, but that definitely doesn't mean I find it bad. These are four phenomenal albums, and this is the one that just doesn't connect with me quite as well. It's mainly the first disc that doesn't wow me. All the songs are good, but the section from We Have Got to Go through The Ways of a Fool just doesn't blow me away. From So Far Gone through the end it's amazing (with the exception of Sloth—again, good song, doesn't wow me), but that slightly down section is enough to drop it behind their other three albums. It's hard not to compare TSOAD and TGA, and the equivalent section on TGA (A Momentary Change through Venture in Black) is just head-and-shoulders better IMO, just a spectacular run of songs.
Your Place in the Sun is also one of my favorites. Good call on that one.
I think the 'I love you" line in the chorus of Not Afraid Part 2 is a bit too shmaltzy, but the rest of the song is mostly great. The "Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away" parts is one of my favorite sections of the entire record (crank that up that highway and pray you don't get a ticket
), and the instrumental section right after that is just sublime.
Interesting that you called out the We Have Got to Go through The Ways of a Fool run in Similitude as one that doesn't blow you away, as if I am in the mood for a small does of the record, stuff from that run is often what I go for. I always crank Makes No Sense and Draw the Line and have a blast. I like Sloth a lot, but do not genuflect to it like a lot of the fanbase does. And the fans thinking pictures or references to sloths stopped being funny like five years ago (and the album came out five years and a month ago).
As for The Great Adventure, I agree about the A Momentary Change through Venture in Black run. To the River and Venture in Black might be my two favorite songs from that record, although The Great Despair and A Love That Never Dies are not far behind.
Topic: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread (Read 554258 times)
