Transatlantic Official Thread

[Mladen]

Shine is kinda repetitive, but still a neat track. Beyond the sun, however, is truly touching. 

[Zydar]

Black As The Sky is still one of their very best songs ever IMHO.

[hefdaddy42]

I think the three shorter songs are the three best on the album, by a long way.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

As much as I like Beyond the Sun, it'd be really hard for it to top WANSL as a ballad for me. Black as the Sky is a great tune.

As for the two epics, I'm actually not as into Into the Blue as I used to be, but it's still another great TA epic. The title track on the other hand, has grown on me a lot.

[Ben_Jamin]

Black As The Sky is still one of their very best songs ever IMHO.

I agree with this a lot. Their Epics are becoming kinda stale for me. Although I do enjoy The Whirlwind.

[bosk1]

Sadly, this is the first album of theirs where I really can't tell you right at this moment how any given song goes.

[hefdaddy42]

Sadly, this is the first album of theirs where I really can't tell you right at this moment how any given song goes.

I definitely have that problem with the two epics.  Which is why I prefer the other 3 songs.

[bosk1]

I just remember one epic has sort of a weird eerie Roine part where he is singing something about black gold, and then Pete has a really odd part that would be out of place in just about any other song, but somehow fits perfectly and ends up being really cool.

[FlyingBIZKIT]

I think Into the Blue starts off really awesome. After about 15 or 16 minutes though, I lose track.

[Ben_Jamin]

I think Into the Blue starts off really awesome. After about 15 or 16 minutes though, I lose track.

Same here. The intro is quite good, but the song starts to drift.

[KevShmev]

Sadly, this is the first album of theirs where I really can't tell you right at this moment how any given song goes.

I am sort of the same way.  I mean, I like it a lot, but while the first three albums were so awesome that I couldn't get them out of my CD for months, hell, years (!!), this new one is very good, but it just hasn't grabbed on to me and refused to let go.  Like I said, it's very good, and there are tons of great moments, but there is just something missing. 

[Nel]

Even now, the title track is the only one I really go back to. Didn't care much for the first four tracks, sadly.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

I have to say, as much as I like it, it might be my least favorite TA release to date. It's not too bad of a detriment--it's still a quite good record with lots of memorable moments, but the other three still surpass it to my ears. The title track, though, definitely still matches up with the other TA epics.

[krands85]

Just to add a bit of balance to the recent posts  This is my favourite Transatlantic album and the epics are my 2 favourite tracks on it.

Ranking:
Kaleidoscope
Into the Blue
Black as the Sky
Beyond the Sun
Shine

I've not been a fan of the band for that long (only since around The Whirlwind came out I think), and I haven't listened to all their albums a huge amount of times. Maybe that has something to do with why I'm really liking Kaleidoscope.

[Mosh]

Into the Blue
Black As the Sky
Kaleidoscope


Shine







Beyond the Sun

[FlyingBIZKIT]

Going back to The Whirlwind, am I the only one that thinks Dancing with Eternal Glory is way longer than it needs to be? It's like it just keeps going...and going...and going...

It's a great album but this song could have been like 3 or 4 minutes

[Mosh]

Totally agreed. There are at least 4 moments where I find myself thinking "ah, this is where the song should end". But then it keeps going. Really kills the "grand finale" effect.

[FlyingBIZKIT]

  It's like damn, just end!

[Nel]

Nah, I feel the same way as well. I love The Whirlwind. But the last part of that song just drags. Especially since I find it way more cornball than the rest of the track.

[Plasmastrike]

Going back to The Whirlwind, am I the only one that thinks Dancing with Eternal Glory is way longer than it needs to be? It's like it just keeps going...and going...and going...

It's a great album but this song could have been like 3 or 4 minutes

Absolutely!! I feel that way big time. When I put on Whirlwind I just consider the end of the album Is It Really Happening? Either put on disc 2 or another album at that point. Oddly enough, lately I've been feeling this way about several songs. Not that the parts are bad per se, they just take away from the piece as a whole and kinda drag. Ending of Breaking All Illusions and Illumination Theory come to mind. It's odd.

[TheAtliator]

Maybe this will also balance this out a bit. For one reason or another, I find Kaleidoscope playing in my house/car all the time that I'm really sick of it but still want to hear it over and over. I think it's still my least favorite or third favorite TA album, but I really do like it.

It's not as good as the other albums only because the title track is not as cohesive and interconnected- it feels just a little disjointed. Then Into The Blue is great, but just too slow to be as good as the other 25 min songs. Also, I really hate all the vague, meaningless (as in the lyricist may have had a meaning but it is not expressed well through the lyrics in a logical or precise way) lyrics that I think come mostly from Stolt that are worst on Kaleidoscope. Just a ton of "they"s and "evil ways" and telling not showing of really broad concepts. Luckily he makes up for it with his incredible singing style, so I find myself listening to (and imitating) the Black Gold section and BATS constantly anyway.

But really-
"There is no place to hot to mine the blackest gold
You gave her birth and now you watch her growing old
If life is leaving tomorrow, we'll turn our backs to all sorrow
And in a dancing ghost town, that's the end of story"

It may very well have a meaning, but nothing that is possible to be derived from just the music and lyrics themselves. Unless I'm really missing something, these aren't something that is poetic or just takes time to decipher (like say Lifting Shadows or something), rather, they're just vague and poetic like someone broadly stating something about not falling into superficial desires. Theres no direction for these lyrics other than that broad topic.

But anyway, I do love this album.

Ranking:
Kaleidoscope
Into the Blue / BATS (considering their lengths, one is a 23/25, and one is a 5.5/6 so they both rank like 92% - hope that makes sense) (Also ITB might raise higher than BATS on some days, I'm not sure)
Beyond the Sun
Shine

[KevShmev]

Maybe it is oversaturation from having written so many long epics over the years between all of them, but for me, the endings to Into the Blue and Kaleidoscope just don't give me that "holy shit, this is totally incredible" feeling that the endings to the three really long epics off the first two albums do.  The meat of both of those songs are both utterly fantastic - like, minutes 10-21 of Into the Blues, and minutes 9-27 of Kaleidoscope - but the climaxes just don't touch the ones done previously by the band.  And that includes Dancing with Eternal Glory/Whirlwind (reprise), which I agree goes on a bit too long, but is still highly enjoyable.  My only beef with The Whirlwind is still that the Overture is easily the "weakest" overture of their epics.  But again, the climaxes to both Kaleidoscope and Into the Blue are both very nice, but for me, there is a big difference between very nice (Kaleidoscope and Into the Blue) and "holy shit, this is totally incredible" (Stranger in Your Soul and Duel with the Devil) with regards to finishes to a long epic.

[Mladen]

Yeah, finishing off an enormous piece of music has to be a huge task for a prog rock musician. I think they pulled it off remarkably well with Duel with the devil and All of the above, but still, I think Kaleidoscope has a neat ending as well, although it's not my favorite part of the song.

[TheAtliator]

I never thought DWEG was too long at all. It's really cool how they drop it all the way back down at the beginning and really slowly build it to the epic ness necessary to end the album. Always sounded perfect to me!

And the ending os Kaleidoscope also works really well for me. I love how that last chorus is slower, but not too slow so it's still totally driving. And the chord structure and melody at the end is really cool.

[Mosh]

Duel With the Devil is probably my favorite outro for any Morse epic. Honestly every outro I've heard from the guy in the past 5 or so years gave me a huge "been there done that" feeling.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

I can never decide whether I like AOTA's outro or DWTD's outro more. The former is extremely atmospheric, melancholic, serene, and beautiful. The latter is definitely climactic but also feels like this grand cliffhanger the way it segues into the next track. Both fantastic, but in different ways.

[RoeDent]

You have to remember that DWEG is effectively in two parts, with The Whirlwind (Reprise) being another movement. Really, The Whirlwind has fourteen movements, if you split Part I where the Overture ends and the "bed" begins for the first vocal entry (at 6:46), and then split Part XII when the first theme comes back in ("We're on a trip...").

[hefdaddy42]

You have to remember that DWEG is effectively in two parts, with The Whirlwind (Reprise) being another movement. Really, The Whirlwind has fourteen movements, if you split Part I where the Overture ends and the "bed" begins for the first vocal entry (at 6:46), and then split Part XII when the first theme comes back in ("We're on a trip...").

That may be how you personally interpret it, but that isn't how the band has divided it.  12 movements, not 14.

[RoeDent]

You have to remember that DWEG is effectively in two parts, with The Whirlwind (Reprise) being another movement. Really, The Whirlwind has fourteen movements, if you split Part I where the Overture ends and the "bed" begins for the first vocal entry (at 6:46), and then split Part XII when the first theme comes back in ("We're on a trip...").

That may be how you personally interpret it, but that isn't how the band has divided it.  12 movements, not 14.

I'm just saying you could. I know that's how the band has divided it.

[KevShmev]

Duel With the Devil is probably my favorite outro for any Morse epic. Honestly every outro I've heard from the guy in the past 5 or so years gave me a huge "been there done that" feeling.

Well, epics that Neal Morse has a large hand in writing, whether as a solo artist or with TA, usually follow a specific formula or structure, and he rarely veers too from it, so I get that "been there done that" feeling, too, sometimes, but for me, the songs are almost always so good that I don't care.

I can never decide whether I like AOTA's outro or DWTD's outro more. The former is extremely atmospheric, melancholic, serene, and beautiful. The latter is definitely climactic but also feels like this grand cliffhanger the way it segues into the next track. Both fantastic, but in different ways.

There are times I wish All of the Above would have ended three minutes earlier.  That ending is definitely beautiful, but it sometimes has that kind of "tacked on" feeling, almost like they stuck it at the end to make the song longer.  The fact that they haven't always played that ending live, like on the Whirld Tour, is telling, IMO.  Still one of the greatest songs ever written, though.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

I can never decide whether I like AOTA's outro or DWTD's outro more. The former is extremely atmospheric, melancholic, serene, and beautiful. The latter is definitely climactic but also feels like this grand cliffhanger the way it segues into the next track. Both fantastic, but in different ways.

There are times I wish All of the Above would have ended three minutes earlier.  That ending is definitely beautiful, but it sometimes has that kind of "tacked on" feeling, almost like they stuck it at the end to make the song longer.  The fact that they haven't always played that ending live, like on the Whirld Tour, is telling, IMO.  Still one of the greatest songs ever written, though.

I think a good reason for that might be that things are different in a live setting. When what sounds like the grand finale finishes off, the crowd is expecting the next one to kick in--they've got all that hype and adrenaline running at this point--whether familiar with the song or not. The mellow three minutes the song takes to close would feel a little jarring, more so in a live setting. That being said, I could understand how it would feel tacked on, but I still love it.

[Mosh]

Duel With the Devil is probably my favorite outro for any Morse epic. Honestly every outro I've heard from the guy in the past 5 or so years gave me a huge "been there done that" feeling.

Well, epics that Neal Morse has a large hand in writing, whether as a solo artist or with TA, usually follow a specific formula or structure, and he rarely veers too from it, so I get that "been there done that" feeling, too, sometimes, but for me, the songs are almost always so good that I don't care.

Oh yea, that's the same for me. I love Into the Blue and even Kaleidoscope, but they're hardly new for Morse.  It's a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand, I'm guaranteed not to be disappointed with Morse epics since I always have a good idea of what to expect and the songwriting is still really good. On the other, I'm not going to be wowed the way I was when hearing the Spock's Beard epics or Bridge Across Forever.

[KevShmev]

I can never decide whether I like AOTA's outro or DWTD's outro more. The former is extremely atmospheric, melancholic, serene, and beautiful. The latter is definitely climactic but also feels like this grand cliffhanger the way it segues into the next track. Both fantastic, but in different ways.

There are times I wish All of the Above would have ended three minutes earlier.  That ending is definitely beautiful, but it sometimes has that kind of "tacked on" feeling, almost like they stuck it at the end to make the song longer.  The fact that they haven't always played that ending live, like on the Whirld Tour, is telling, IMO.  Still one of the greatest songs ever written, though.

I think a good reason for that might be that things are different in a live setting. When what sounds like the grand finale finishes off, the crowd is expecting the next one to kick in--they've got all that hype and adrenaline running at this point--whether familiar with the song or not. The mellow three minutes the song takes to close would feel a little jarring, more so in a live setting. That being said, I could understand how it would feel tacked on, but I still love it.

True, and if nothing else, it makes the ending to that one a little different at least, right?

  I love Into the Blue and even Kaleidoscope, but they're hardly new for Morse.  It's a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand, I'm guaranteed not to be disappointed with Morse epics since I always have a good idea of what to expect and the songwriting is still really good. On the other, I'm not going to be wowed the way I was when hearing the Spock's Beard epics or Bridge Across Forever.

In a way, Transatlantic are victims of their own awesomeness. They set the bar so high when those epics off the first two albums that it's easy to hear the two new ones and think, "Yeah, they're good, but they're no All of the Above/Duel.../Stranger..."

Having said that, I listened to all of Kaleidoscope (the song) on a long drive yesterday and it was pretty freaking great.

[Mosh]

  I love Into the Blue and even Kaleidoscope, but they're hardly new for Morse.  It's a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand, I'm guaranteed not to be disappointed with Morse epics since I always have a good idea of what to expect and the songwriting is still really good. On the other, I'm not going to be wowed the way I was when hearing the Spock's Beard epics or Bridge Across Forever.

In a way, Transatlantic are victims of their own awesomeness. They set the bar so high when those epics off the first two albums that it's easy to hear the two new ones and think, "Yeah, they're good, but they're no All of the Above/Duel.../Stranger..."

Having said that, I listened to all of Kaleidoscope (the song) on a long drive yesterday and it was pretty freaking great.

Not just Transatlantic, but Neal Morse in general. In the pre-Snow days Neal was writing epics that were really unlike anything anyone else was doing. That's part of what made them so exciting. When you rehash the same approach for 20 odd years, it'll start to get stale. I will say though that Neal's best recent epics are with Transatlantic imo. Every time he works with them, the quality in his writing skyrockets.

Anyway, I'm listening to the Kaleidoscope album as I type this and I'm enjoying it a lot! It may not hold a candle to the early work, but it's still one of my fav albums for 2014.  And while Into the Blue is nothing "new", I think it is a very worthy companion to the early epics.

[kirksnosehair]

"There is no place to hot to mine the blackest gold
You gave her birth and now you watch her growing old
If life is leaving tomorrow, we'll turn our backs to all sorrow
And in a dancing ghost town, that's the end of story"

It may very well have a meaning, but nothing that is possible to be derived from just the music and lyrics themselves. Unless I'm really missing something, these aren't something that is poetic or just takes time to decipher (like say Lifting Shadows or something), rather, they're just vague and poetic like someone broadly stating something about not falling into superficial desires. Theres no direction for these lyrics other than that broad topic.

Have you listened to The Flower Kings?  They've got about a dozen albums that say absolutely nothing, but they're still great! 




You should be "smiling like a horse, my child..."