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Tim Morse: Faithscience
Tim Morse - Faithscience Album Review

Tim Morse: Faithscience

Melodic/Progressive Rock
5.0/5.0

Website
Amethyst Edge Productions
by Craig Hartranft,  06.08.2013

Tim Morse is quite the talented fellow. Besides being a multi-instrumentalist on piano, synths, and guitars, he's also a published author of several books and many magazine articles. He's played in several rock and fusion band's and collaborated with Yes vocalist Jon Anderson. Yet I suspect he would find creating music his first love.

Tim Morse Faithscience Band Photo

Tim Morse: complete with shadow.

Coming eight years after the well-received Transformation, Faithscience, his second album, is another tour-de-force of his particular brand of melodic progressive rock. That is to say that Morse puts his personal stamp on the classic prog tradition, leaning more to the classic English style. Echoes of Yes and Genesis are ubiquitous. Even his voice has a certain Anderson timbre, not as high, but smooth and sometimes wistful.

Written over several years, with a host exceptional musicians including Kansas violinist David Ragsdale, Faithscience easily blends the intrigue and expectation prog creates with a friendly and enduring accessibility. It's a win-win scenario: you get tremendous songwriting and musicianship and it sounds really great.

The album started as a concept album about transatlantic pilot Charles Lindbergh, and the song Voyager speaks to this. But later it turned to "reflecting someone who was rooted in science, but over the course of his lifetime and a series of events becomes transformed into a spiritual seeker." You'll catch some of this in the lyrics (found on his web site). Yet the real pleasure here is the music. Clearly Morse spent much time taking the improvisations he started with and working them into full arrangements. They bristle with detail without becoming burdensome or grossly technical. This is notable in both Voyager and Closer, two of the longer pieces here, which systematically weave prog and fusion, guitar and keyboards, in a directed stream of consciousness. Sometimes that rock fusion takes over a song as with The Last Wave, which sounds like a mash up of Yes with Brand X and maybe some Pat Metheny. Fundamentally, the depth and breadth of Morse's arrangements are both large and inviting; you can easily be swept away by them. And more words could be written about them. I won't bore you with more verbiage. Head over to his site or CD baby and sample some of this fine music. Then buy the album; you'll be glad you did.



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In Short

It' pretty basic: with Faithscience, Tim Morse offers another delightful and intriguing album of melodic progressive rock. Quite recommended.

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