Recent Reviews

May 2025

March 2025

February 2025

January 2025

December 2024

November 2024

[ More Music Reviews ]


Cosmic Cathedral: Deep Water
Cosmic Cathedral - Deep Water Album Art

Cosmic Cathedral: Deep Water

Melodic Progressive Rock
5.0/5.0

Website Facebook
InsideOut Music
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 14.05.2025 | Released: 25.04.2025

Prog mastermind Neal Morse, always musically adventurous and creative, brings genre fans another new project. Cosmic Cathedral features, along side Morse, three legendary musicians whose work crosses many genres: drummer Chester Thompson (Steve Hackett, Phil Collins, Genesis, et al), bass player Byron House (Sandra McCracken, Amy Grant, Al Green, Johnny Cash, et al), and accomplished guitarist Phil Keaggy.

Cosmic Cathedral - Click For Larger Image

Thompson, Morse, House, and Keaggy

After meeting Thompson at a Steve Hackett show, Neal Morse explains the origins of Cosmic Cathedral: "As I was driving home I had a feeling that I should get together with Chester. A month later, we had lunch and he invited me over to his place and we had a really proggy, jazzy jam with some great ideas ... Chester plays in such a different cool way, it made me play differently."


Morse elaborates on the song building process: Much of the album was created from jam sessions where Morse's long-time audio partner Jerry Guidroz put the best parts together, such as for the 38 minute epic, Deep Water Suite. "Time To Fly, also came directly from one of the jam sessions, where we took one of Phil's ideas and all four of us elaborated on it."

He adds, Deep Water is a "prog meets yacht rock meets The Beatles" kind of album, with an unmistakable jazz fusion influence: "These guys are real groovers: even if they're playing proggy stuff, it has more of a Steely Dan feel to it, but when Phil and I start singing it sounds like The Beatles!

For this listener, Cosmic Cathedral and Deep Water is, simply and essentially, classic melodic progressive rock created by immensely talented musicians who were providentially destined (in the cosmic divine sense) to work together. Morse, Keaggy, House, and Thompson are like an Olympic "dream team" of prog icons. Musically, it arrives as advertised: prog meets rock meets jazz fusion. Lyrically, it's inspirational as their combined Christian identity and faith are manifest across the entire album. Absolutely recommended to all progressive music fans.


CraigHartranft.net - New fiction, crime fiction by Craig Hartranft

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

The Take Away

Cosmic Cathedral and Deep Water is, simply and essentially, classic melodic progressive rock created by immensely talented musicians who were providentially destined to work together. Morse, Keaggy, House, and Thompson are like an Olympic "dream team" of prog icons. Absolutely recommended to all progressive music fans.

Support the artist, click the link below to buy the album at Amazon (US site) in your favorite format.

Purchase Cosmic Cathedral - Deep Water at Amazon
Find A Review

Alphabetical Index

a b c d e f g h i j
k l m n o p q r s t
u v w x y z #
New & Notable
Read the Gotthard: Stereo Crush Album Review

Here's a fun fact about Swiss legends, Gotthard: their last 16 releases, excepting their debut album, went to number one in their home country, making them one of Switzerland's most successful acts and ... [ Read More ]

April 2025 Stats
  • Views: 12K
  • Active Users: 3.3K
  • New Users: 2.7K
  • Event Count: 35K

    • Source: Google Analytics