TRANSATLANTIC
New spins…
One record, twice the fun? All-star prog maximalists prove there might be too much of a good thing with twin versions of their fifth album…
Words: Grant Moon Illustration: Mark Leary
Edited by Dave Everley prog.reviews@futurenet.com
“W e have always had the attitude that more of anything is never enough,” asserts Transatlantic drummer Mike Portnoy, proudly. “But this time we have taken that idea to a new extreme.” And, boy, have they.
Transatlantic’s self-produced fifth album, The Absolute Universe was fleshed out in Sweden in late 2019. Then, as Portnoy, Neal Morse, Roine Stolt and Pete Trewavas worked on their parts in their respective studios, the music – says Stolt – kept “expanding and expanding”. Ultimately they settled on two variations on the same record: a 60-minute, single-disc ‘abridged’ version subtitled The Breath Of Life, and a 90-minute, double-disc ‘extended’ one, called Forevermore. The shorter isn’t an edit of the longer, because that’d be too straightforward. Instead, each is a fresh recording, with alternate compositional elements, lyrics, and songs. Between the two, what you get is, if not the best of both worlds, certainly the most of them.