Album Review: D'Virgilio, Morse, & Jennings - Sophomore

Have you ever had a record that should have been right up your alley, but for whatever reason you found yourself rather detached from it? That happened to me with the first record from these three prog luminaries. As a song-based, mainly acoustic record filled with harmonies, it should have been perfect for me. I did like it when I was listening to it... and then I stopped listening to it. Something about the music was too breezy, or the harmonies were too soft, or I'm not sure what exactly, but I found myself leaving it in the past and moving on to other things. I've barely thought of that record since I finished writing my review of it, so I suppose I was surprised to see a new one in my inbox, since I completely lost track of time.

In the time since, I have only grown further removed from the prog world these guys come from, and nothing any of them have done with their other projects has spoken to me either. The direction I have been moving as a listener is quite far removed from what they have been doing, so I wasn't sure what to expect from another go 'round with this trio.

The record kicks off with a trademark Neal Morse acoustic guitar riff, and we quickly settle into the group doing what they do best; pop/prog with lovely harmonies and melodies that make you bop your head. When I think about what I want to hear, and what I imagine these three doing together, "Hard To Be Easy" is a perfect illustration of it. There's just enough playing in there to remind you where they're coming from, but it's a perfect song for a warm and sunny day.

That feeling doesn't quite carry through the record, and in part it's because these songs come from three different minds, and thus come across quite different if you don't fully buy-in to all of them. For me, I've never for a second been a fan of Haken, so when Jennings' song "Tiny Little Fires" comes on, it takes me out of the experience. The introductory motif sounds like a cross between a nursery rhyme and Christmas music, and his lead vocal doesn't have nearly as much charm to my ears as Neal Morse does. The bridge to the song is better, but by that point I've already had enough. This is a good illustration of why variety can be both a blessing and a curse.

One of the more fun aspects of the album is to try to figure out where some of Neal's lyrics come from. There are plenty of times where you feel smart for being able to spot the cliche before he says it, where predictive singing to yourself is like creating deja vu. But then there are times where he starts singing a line about going to the hospital after dancing with a friend, and I'm caught completely dumbfounded. I understand the concept of confessional songwriting, but narrating random events from your life is an odd choice to make. It's such an unrelatable little detail, I find it pushes the song further away from the listener. But that's just me.

I'm also rather baffled that, like on the last record, by the middle of the record they're playing some very old sounding bluesy rock. The whole point of this group was that they don't rock, so I'm not sure why they leave behind their aesthetic for a song like "Mama", which not only doesn't sound like anything else on the record, but sounds so out of this time period. If you're going to ask, no, the song isn't so good it quiets those questions.

By the end of this record, what I'm thinking is that these records sound like a clearing house for songs that don't fit these guys' main bands. They must realize Neal's 'songwriter' albums don't sell as well, and I'm not sure how many people even realize Nick has made any, so this group is a way of multiplying their chances of people hearing these songs. I know I'm a cynic, but that's just the way this record makes me feel. It doesn't sound like a batch of songs written with a clear intent and sound.

And that's what I find so disappointing. When they do the sunny day acoustic pop songs, I'm happy. It's essentially a softer version of Neal's pop material, but with extra harmonies. That stuff works, while the more 'experimental' stuff rarely hits the mark. A three-headed monster has trouble walking a straight line, because all three are looking at the same path from a different angle. That happens with this record, and I find it a messy hodgepodge of ideas that doesn't endear long enough to work as a whole album.