Transatlantic

Good things come to those who wait. Transatlantic fans are used to playing the waiting game, and their patience has finally been rewarded with the band's fourth official studio album, Kaleidoscope. Steeped in vibrant prog rock organics, it's a step back from the band's 77 minute single-track album from 2009, The Whirlwind, but is no less epic in its execution. The beloved prog rock side-project featuring Neal Morse (ex-Spock's Beard), Mike Portnoy (The Winery Dogs, ex-Dream Theater), Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings) and Pete Trewavas (Marillion), Transatlantic's foundation was built in 1999 and solidified with the release of their debut album, SMPT:e, in 2000. A second studio album, Bridge Across Forever, was issued one year later only to see Transatlantic put on ice in 2002 when Morse left Spock's Beard to explore other musical avenues. Portnoy and Morse continued to work together on a variety of projects in the years that followed, and this working relationship has been cited as the catalyst for bringing Transatlantic back together in 2009. Following the promotion/touring cycle for The Whirlwind, it was decided that the band would make another album if and when the individual members had the time. "There was talk a year and three months ago about doing an album before we actually did it," reveals Morse. "I was feeling it for a while. Some of the music that ended up on my Momentum album (2012), I was thinking would make good material for Transatlantic. Roine and I, our schedules have a little more space in them, and Pete and Mike's schedules finally aligned so we were able to put this together. I'm just glad we got to do it again and I'm really happy with the way the album came out." Since SMPT:e, Transatlantic has taken on a life of its own. Morse, Portnoy, Stolt and Trewavas share equally in the songwriting and for the most part, the music that fans hear on Kaleidoscope - and all of their previous albums - were created as Transatlantic songs rather than leftovers taken from the members' full time bands. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule: "The second song on the new album, 'Shine', I wrote it before my Momentum album came out," says Morse. "I thought about recording it for myself, but it just smelled of Transatlantic. I saved it but I didn't discuss it with the other guys and I didn't know if they'd even want to do it. In fact, there were three acoustic songs I presented to them and they chose 'Shine', which I was hoping for because it sounded like a Transatlantic song." Kaleidoscope features five tracks, with three shorter songs - 'Shine', 'Black As The Sky' and 'Beyond The Sun' - bookended by trademark Transatlantic epics 'Into The Blue' and 'Kaleidoscope' clocking in at 25:11 and 31:54 respectively. The album was created as all previous Transatlantic outings were, with the quartet going into the process blind and sharing musical ideas, and Portnoy ultimately sifting through the material picking out what he felt was the best of the bunch. Initial writing was done in Nashville, Tennessee where they got together, wrote and arranged the songs, focusing on completing the arrangements and laying down the drums and bass. According to Morse "we sketch out the house and build the foundation, then Roine and I go off to our respective studios and do what we need to. We send those parts and a lot of vocals back and forth via the internet, but the writing is done together in Tennessee. We just go from the gut, and I think it's an amazing process of trusting each other. There's no shortage of ideas; it's more like 'Which ideas do you want to use?'" "I don't know how it started," Morse says of the cover song tradition, "but we've done it for every album. It's a lot of fun because a lot of the time it's simpler music than what we're involved in." There are points during the journey through Kaleidoscope when the listener will be reminded of artists like Yes, early Genesis, and even Styx, but in the end the album is distinctly Transatlantic before it can be compared to anyone else. "I think that comes from the different ingredients," says Morse. "It's the four of us from all over the world with our different backgrounds, cultures and musical history that this band totally unique."