D'Virgilio, Morse & Jennings
Sophomore

The first album was a pleasant surprise, but I didn't think another would come so soon, in an era where the timelines are increasingly long. Yet, the trio composed of Nick D’Virgilio, Neal Morse, and Ross Jennings returns in less than two years with the second album "Sophomore," an album that is substantially more mature.

We are still facing three musicians from a prog background who come together to do something quite different, rather far from their usual genre; and the result can't be anything less than amazing, because the preparation and experience of a prog musician are evident even when venturing into different and more "easy" territories, the prog-origin musician always knows how to add a little something extra. Once again, the structure is fundamentally acoustic, and we are in typically folk rock and country rock territories, with some incursions into blues, the feel is always very American.

As I have mentioned on some occasions, according to my very personal parameters, the acoustic imprint is not automatically translatable into the folk genre as often believed and decreed. Personally, to classify music in this genre, it needs something that explicitly refers to a very rural, earthy, peasant environment, or something truly tied to popular folklore. James LaBrie's latest solo work for me is not folk, because it doesn't evoke that environment, nor do I consider the Kings of Convenience folk. Here, however, I must say that a typically rural atmosphere is indeed present, but particularly a very American feel, even if perhaps it wasn't really the trio's intention.

Referring back to the previous discourse, the acoustic guitar is the great protagonist, but we also have delicate and evocative percussion that contributes to creating the atmosphere; there are also organ pads that make the sound warmer, sometimes an electric piano. We have more lively and animated tracks and others more collected and intimate. Among the first, the most sparkling is certainly "Tiny Little Fires," with a sarabande of acoustic guitars, percussion, organs, and the exceptional presence of the synthesizer and a xylophone, or "Walking on Water," which paradoxically is a flamenco just a little more Americanized; what about the sincere country-blues with acoustic slaps and organ blows of the opener "Hard to Be Easy." On the other side, the calmer side, "Right Where You Should Be" and even more "The Weary One" rise above all, they really seem out of some American TV show; when you listen to them, you can really imagine the wooden house on the prairies, in an atmosphere this time definitely rainy and melancholic; to go into more detail, we can highlight in the first the vibrant electric notes that at well-studied intervals emerge amidst the acoustic guitars giving the track a truly country inflection, the second is very slow and is just the song for a dark room and fireplace, or for a bonfire; the strings would like to try to make it livelier, but the whistling interventions make it as lulling as possible. Other notable tracks are: "Anywhere the Wind Blows," which is a perfect "on the road" track, and they realized it as much that in the video clip Neal Morse is seen traversing the countryside in a convertible; and "Mama," where folk is abandoned for a massive rock-blues that however never becomes hard (I apply here the same discourse regarding folk, it's not enough to have a somewhat rocky guitar to talk about hard rock, clear).

A feature I've noticed, also in the previous album, is the rather limited space given to Ross Jennings' voice, there are few parts that he sings in the first person, he remains fundamentally a background singer but even when singing all together he is the least heard. My question, not being a great fan of Jennings' voice, considering him the weak point of a great band like Haken, is: could it be that Morse and D’Virgilio have also realized his limited vocal abilities? Or is it that the two former Spock's Beard companions know each other better and for a long time and trust each other blindly while being more diffident towards the younger British colleague? Who knows...

In any case, the trio is no longer a surprise; "Sophomore" is the album of confirmation but also a step forward, resulting slightly richer and more engaging than the first. If the first album seemed a bit less creative and didn’t make me hope for a sequel, now I hope the project will continue.