(((O))) Review: Neal Morse and The Resonance – No Hill For A Climber

From its pastoral introduction with the ‘Eternity In Your Eyes’ it’s a great way to kick things off for Neal Morse & The Resonance by sending us into a world that’s beyond its symphonic approach. Neal has been a very busy, busy man when it comes to The Neal Morse Band, Spock’s Beard, Transatlantic, and of course Flying Colors. He always takes it one step further to pursue more parallel universes that awaits him.

No Hill For A Climber, which was named after from a line from Barbara Kingslover’s 2022’s novel Demon Copperhead, which was inspired by Charles Dickens’ classic David Copperfield. The album has a spiritual guidance of finding the true essence of who you really are. Neal realised that he wanted to work with local young musicians with the suggestion of his wife after they played with them for their Christmas shows and other events that followed.

Ranging from Chris Riley, Andre Madatian, and Philip Martin, it can’t just be the Neal Morse band 24/7, but take it a step further to prove that it was more than just The Similitude of a Dream, more than The Kindness of Strangers, and more than the Bridge Across Forever. He wanted to push that envelope very well. And it needed that gigantic push between No Hill For A Climber.

With two tracks clocking in at 20 and 28-minutes, Neal brings in the big guns for the opening track and the title-track as well. The overture-like intro revs up its engines on the first composition with its soaring melodies with its unexpected twists that bring to mind Rickenbacker Basses, ELP-like fanfare synths, and metallic wah-wah guitars following into the battlefield.

It becomes a tidal-waving clash of the titans that sends you into the wake of Poseidon, ready to send its massive waves pounding the boat like a mo-fo. Once it descends down to the heavens the piano and Neal’s angelic vocals sends its mellotron into the night-sky, waiting to greet their loved ones with its love and emotional tones that sends hits your heart with a mighty tug.

Then he swings into the smoky, nightclubs of the 1950s with a soulful-jazzy approach, followed by a Leslie-speaker guitar melody and Monk-like concertos for the ‘Northern Lights’ to occur as the ‘Echoes of Forever’ sets up the ambient redemption to bring peace with its bluesy arrangements. Man, those wah-wah pedals come in handy to bring in some funk-like orientations on the guitar by upward and downwards across its beautiful landscape.

When you hear a track like ‘Thief’ it takes us into a darker, vaudeville atmosphere detailing someone using their debit card by stealing it claiming that the house that the person is theirs now and ruined their lives and left them under the highway bridge and find food for survival.

Neal isn’t messing around when it comes to a moody, jazzy, yet 1940s-like song that he could’ve written for Judy Garland during the time she wanted to move away from being Dorothy and into something that was more adult-like in Meet Me in St. Louis. Elsewhere, the galloping fanfare behind ‘All the Rage’ kicks into overdrive for the guitar riff to begin as the curtain opens up to reveal its unexpected time changes as you reach the big time in its Styx-like orientation that speaks of The Grand Illusion-era.

The acoustic textures behind ‘Ever Interceding’ swallows you into the darkened waters of the Abyss. When you hear the introduction, you almost think of Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ at first, but then it takes a complete turn into a mournful waltz that Neal walks into.

Tackling the themes of someone going through a psychological breakdown, the struggle of being a superhero or a super-heroine, the struggle of being two people as one becomes the weight on your shoulders. It lifts you up as Morse takes them by the hand and heads into the other world with ascending arrangements, meeting them one day in the afterlife, and the Zeppelin-like qualities that come out of the wood works.

Howling winds, desertry landscapes, and ambient-folk like introduction with middle-eastern percussion grooves, sets up the confrontation that’s about to unfold on the 28-minute title-track. This is where all worlds collide between the forces of good and evil.

Morse tells his band mates to go into a full throttling attack that has a menacing approach which speak of Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso’s Darwin-era that comes to mind before he returns to the Similitude-era once more, continuing where he had left off with his own band prior to that, many years ago. With its Yes-like return that speaks of Close to the Edge, there’s a back-and-forth vocalisation with the bass entering the Chris Squire route, heading down the tunnelling highway with its gorgeous scenery.

There’s a lot of amazing structures that are on this album. Morse has proven to show no sign of stopping. The imaginative movie inside our heads. No Hill for a Climber has proven to be the most majestic, orchestrated, and uplifting albums that he and The Resonance unleashed last year.