So, now that Neal has released six solo prog album since leaving Spock's Beard, which six album run do you like better?
Comparing the studio albums one-by-one...
The Light vs
Testimony: Gotta go with Spock's Beard here.
Testimony has a lot of really good songs, but also has plenty of unnecessary padding.
The Light is nearly perfect - I think "On the Edge" should have been earlier in the track order, as putting a short song at the end after three long pieces makes it seem like an afterthought that they threw on there. Plus, it has one of the best epics Neal has ever written, that being the title track.
Beware of Darkness vs
One: This is tough. Both of these are really good, but fall a hair or two short of being great. Even with the bonus songs, I think I'll give Beware of Darkness the very slight edge, as it does have "The Doorway," also one of Neal's best epics (or mini-epics, based on your definition of epic
).
The Kindness of Strangers vs
?: There is no "question" which one of these is better, pun intended.
TKOS is good, but
? is terrific.
Day for Night vs
Sola Scriptura: Both are somewhat weak by Neal's standards, but for completely different reasons. DFN has a handful of short, forgettable songs, while not really having anything truly great (although I dig "Crack the Big Sky" and "The Gypsy" a lot). SS, meanwhile, has two really long epics, both of which have some great parts, but both of which also sound a bit too meandering and long. But SS's highs are higher than DFN's, so I'll give solo Neal the edge here.
V vs
Lifeline : This is a beatdown of Super Bowls in the late 80s/early 90s proportions.
Lifeline is easily the weakest of the 12 here, while
V is possibly the best. No contest.
Snow vs
Testimony 2: It almost seems unfair to do this now, since T2 is so new, but even though we all sometimes have the tendency to say that something new that we are loving is better than we end up realizing it is, I still gotta give the slight edge to SB. I still love almost all of
Snow, but if T2 ages as well as it, it could someday surpass it....
So, it looks like SB won 4-2. And if I had to put the 12 in order of preference, they'd probably look like this:
1.
V2.
Snow 3.
?4.
Testimony 25.
The Light6.
Beware of Darkness 7.
One 8.
The Kindness of Strangers9.
Testimony 10.
Sola Scriptura 11.
Day for Night 12.
Lifeline