Spock's Beard
The Kindness Of Strangers

Listen on Youtube to the last track of this album, "Flow", this alone would be worth the album, and then read here. Done? Ok.

Spock's Beard, this strange name (literally Spock's beard), refers to an episode of Star Trek where this pointy-eared guy unusually has a beard. It's not a name that sticks in the mind, and perhaps this has played against them down here.

Neo-progressive American band born in the '90s, well known in their homeland but very little here. I'm not quite sure why, maybe ineffective commercial strategies, maybe because of the unwieldy name, but I guarantee you that for the Italian prog enthusiast, their melodies would be wonderful.

Last year, after 35 years apart during which everyone went their own way, I reunited with a childhood friend with whom I used to play Marvel superheroes. Among all the joy this reunion brought me, two things satisfied me the most: our long post-afternoon post-youth philosophical reflections and, through him, discovering Spock's Beard.

Good musicians, composers of often romantic melodies, at times slightly leaning towards pop, they reached their peak under the guidance of Neal Morse, lead vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar, and main composer, founder along with his brother Alan on main electric guitar, Nick D'Virgilio on drums, Dave Meros on bass, Ryo Okumoto on keyboards. Then in 2002, Neal converted to a fanatical Christianity and, declaring he had received from God the order to finish the album "Snow", leave the band, and await instructions, he left for a solo career of evangelizing albums.

Their sound with that lineup is predominantly soft-prog-rock with the added value of the use of the famous Hammond and Mellotron that send the less young into ecstasy, vibrations echoing the mythical '70s and giving chills. Sometimes, but not on this album, they venture into counterpoint with great results.

"The Kindness Of Strangers," composed in '98, is in my opinion their best album, but "Snow" and "Beware Of Darkness" are also noteworthy. The others are good.

Don't be troubled if the tracks often start with somewhat improbable intros, things change later, but—and perhaps it's intentional—often the first moments evoke images drawn and colored in '60s hippy style, a bit like what you see in the opening sequence of the movie Motel Woodstock.

I prefer not to give long descriptions of the tracks: they need to be listened to. A good start to the album with the mini-suite "The Good Don't Last", but the strong prog pieces only come at the end. The intermediate tracks "In the Mouth of Madness", "Cakewalk On Easy Street", "June", and "Strange World" are pleasant ballads, among which June is acoustic, and this is good because "Music in the Beginning was acoustic".

The last two tracks are truly what one could hope to hear from the evolution of romantic progressive rock, not metal.

"Harm's Way" has a complex structure. I'll focus on the last mini-suite "Flow" because it's an excellent piece and represents the finale of an album as beautiful as few others. A haunting musical motif acts as a bond and fades into an album closure—again—like few have been heard.

And so... Spock's Beard? You can't not know them, despite this ridiculous name.