FLYING COLORS: Second Nature (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

With their first eponymous album, the supergroup Flying Colors had seduced the Music Waves editorial staff. A challenge that was not won in advance because the association of great rock names is not enough to make the right bands and Neal Morse's presence in the combo could unbalance him, as the musical imprint of the man is easily recognizable in everything he does.

Far from what one might have feared, "Flying Colors" was an album that was at once balanced, melodious, varied and devilishly seductive. Let's kill the suspense: "Second Nature", by taking the same recipes, and even improving them a little, is proving to be the worthy successor. We find this finesse and care given to the compositions, the result of the delicate and intelligent fusion of the influences of the five musicians, and served by an interpretation whose quality needless to say, in view of the protagonists' backgrounds. We're in the top of the range!

The album is delimited by two long ballads, the intro title in the form of a traditional symphonic and progressive suite while the one serving as a conclusion is a sequence of three hymns to the cyclical melody. Between these two limits, the band takes us from romantic ballads to neo-Metal, hard rock, folk, pop and American variety, without this eclecticism turning to disparate.

If some passages cannot deny their Morsian influence (the unbridled introduction of "Open Up Your Eyes", the sentimental "A Place In Your World" or "Searching For The Air", the second part of "Cosmic Symphony", these two tracks being sung by Neal himself) and will delight fans of Spock's Beard and Transatlantic combined, they nevertheless remain sufficiently episodic not to upset its detractors, who would be wrong to deprive themselves of the listening of "Mask Machine", a high-flying space-metal with a stratospheric guitar solo reminiscent of some of Muse's muscular tracks, of 'Bombs Away', a powerful epic ballad close to Led Zeppelin, of the cinematic 'Peaceful Harbor' to majestic keyboard layers and melancholic vocals, or of the heady melodies of 'Cosmic Symphony'. Even the album's few lighter songs, from 'The Fury Of My Love' to 'Lost Without You', three songs flirting with marshmallow pop and the great American variety, has the good taste to be charismatic enough to be listened to gently.

Music is generally powerful, orchestral, melodious, inventive, like a torrent that carries everything in its path and the band don't hesitate to superimpose the layers to enrich its compositions. Let us pay tribute to the production whose clarity makes it possible to distinguish the work of each one even in the most dense passages. Finally, special mention to Casey McPherson for his impressive vocal abilities, both for the warmth of the feelings he shares and for his range and controlled power. Everything seems easy to him, a vocal chameleon daring the exuberance of a Matthew Bellamy, the purity of a Jeff Buckley and even crooner like Sinatra.

Musically and emotionally very rich, 'Second Nature' is a melting pot of subliminal influences that are found in a melodious and original music to which we can easily adhere. - Official website

FLYING COLORS

SECOND NATURE

MASCOT LABEL GROUP

PROGRESSIVE ROCK