Dig The New Breed

Supergroup collaborator and solo artist Neal Morse has switched things up for his latest album, No Hill For A Climber, and brought in a new team of young talent, referred to as The Resonance. The artist discusses working in a different way, the challenges of lyric-writing, and whether this spells the end of his songwriting partnership with Mike Portnoy.

- Rich Wilson

Musical genres can gradually fade away, as the more prominent protagonists age gracefully and commence thoughts of retirement. Prog rock isn't exempt from that potentially worrying atrophy, but fortunately there's an ongoing resurgence led by younger artists who are providing a necessary reinvigoration to the scene. Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks is one example of an established artist working with unknown, but extremely capable, musicians, and Neal Morse's new recording, collaborating with a team billed as The Resonance, has also adopted a similarly ambitious approach. Morse is renowned for possessing a level of creativity that dwarfs other bands, frequently releasing a number of albums in a single year.

So what drove him to adopt an alternative methodology on this latest album, No Hill For A Climber? "It was around this time [in 2023] and I was looking at 2024, not knowing what I was going to be doing in terms of making a prog album," he recalls. "I knew I had a singer-songwriter album, Late Bloomer, that was already starting to take shape. I knew we were doing Morsefest [his annual weekend of shows] in London in January and that I had Cruise To The Edge with Flying Colors in March. So, there were some things on the calendar, but I didn't know what albums I would be making. I was talking to my wife about it and she said, 'What about making an album with some of the local guys that are younger and travelling in our circles?' I thought that would be cool, as I've always wanted to play with people where it wasn't going to be a big production, or cost a lot of money to get us all together. I love reading about the early days of The Beatles, when they all lived near each other. If they were inspired by a song, they could just get together and work on it."