Today at 9:06 AM
THE NEAL MORSE BAND
‘THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM’
SET FOR RELEASE NOVEMBER 11
ON RADIANT RECORDS VIA METAL BLADE RECORDS/SONY;
WORLDWIDE TOUR STARTS
JANUARY 15, 2017 IN NASHVILLE, TN
September
9, 2016 -- The journey of Neal Morse has seen three decades of musical
accomplishments, the latest being the inception of THE NEAL MORSE BAND.
Morse has forged many relationships over the years with his other bands,
Spock’s Beard, Flying Colors, and Transatlantic. However, the most
compelling and fruitful efforts have been those with drummer Mike
Portnoy (The Winery Dogs, Twisted Sister, ex-Dream Theater).
Now
the current lineup of THE NEAL MORSE BAND—Morse, Portnoy, bassist Randy
George, keyboardist Bill Hubauer and guitarist Eric Gillette—brings
forth THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM, a concept album to be released November 11 on Radiant Records via Metal Blade Records/SONY. Pre-orders for THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM begin today at 10am CT on Radiant Records’ website.
This
will be the eighth studio album with Morse, Portnoy and George, and the
second as a true collaboration with this current lineup. A lyric video
for the song, “Overture,” premiered on PROG Magazine’s website earlier
today and is now available on the band’s official YouTube page.
Clocking
in at over 100 minutes, this amazing piece of prog storytelling will
leave you breathless, exhilarated, amused and fulfilled in a way that
only inspired music can. It will be available in various formats: a two
CD package, a Special Edition with the two CDs and “The Making Of A
Dream” DVD, or as three vinyl records along with two CDs.
Together,
Morse and Portnoy have launched four bands, but the one that has
endured the longest and thus with the most musical output has been THE
NEAL MORSE BAND. Over the years, Morse, along with Portnoy and George,
always assembled musicians as needed to support Neal’s solo music. In
2012, they held auditions to find the musicians needed to fill out the
band as a permanent lineup that would write music collectively. Hubauer
and Gillette joined the band after three days of auditions. The fivesome
went on to release THE GRAND EXPERIMENT in 2014 followed by the ALIVE AGAIN live DVD/2 CD package in 2015.
As Neal Morse explains, “THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM is loosely and sometimes directly based on the book, Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. The book’s original title was The Pilgrim’s Progress from this world to the that which is to come, delivered under the similitude of a dream,
and it was originally published in 1678. The book chronicles the
spiritual journey of a man from the City of Destruction to the place of
Deliverance. Someone had suggested to me that I do a concept album based
on this book, but I kind of forgot about it. Then when I began writing
new songs last December, the suggestion came to my mind. I had never
read the book, so I Googled the SparkNotes story outline and began to
write some little song bits and instrumentals based on what I had read.
Those bits combined with the ideas that the other guys brought to the
table then miraculously exploded into this double concept album. Funny
thing is, this album only really covers about the first 75 or 80 pages.
Maybe we should've made a five disc collection! Well, we'll save that
for later. Ha.”
He
continues, “At the conclusion of the grueling recording sessions, I
remember Mike saying rather prophetically, ‘Boys, I think we just made
the album of our careers.’”
"I
honestly think this is THE album of my career,” declares Portnoy. “Neal
and I have now made 18 studio albums together, and I consider THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM
the absolute creative pinnacle of our collaborations together. I've
always had a soft spot for double concept albums such as Pink Floyd's THE WALL and The Who's TOMMY,
and I can bravely say that I think we've created an album here that can
sit side by side with those masterpieces. Bold words, I know, but after
a career of almost 50 albums, I honestly consider this to be one of the
defining works of my career.”
“We
weren’t sure we had enough music to make a double CD, and yet it seemed
as though the concept and the music wanted to go there,” bassist Randy
George continues. “Ultimately, we created so much great music in the
sessions that it just had to be a double album! To cap that off, we
worked with a pre-imminent classic album cover artist to create painted
illustrations of our concept which will grace the booklet!”
THE
NEAL MORSE BAND tours worldwide almost yearly and continues to grow in
popularity, attracting new listeners everywhere they go. The band has
toured in North America, Central America, Europe, Israel, Mexico and
India. The shows are filled with excited and extremely loyal fans, some
which have regularly traveled very long distances to see the band. The
band has an extensive catalog of live shows on Blu-Ray and DVD as well.
Their
latest round of worldwide tour dates start January 15, 2017 in Morse’s
current hometown of Nashville, TN. More dates will be announced in the
coming weeks on the band’s official website.
DATE CITY VENUE
Sun 1/15 Nashville, TN TBA
Tue 1/17 Seattle, WA Triple Door
Wed 1/18 San Francisco, CA Regency Ballroom
Sat 1/21 Whittier, CA The Center Theatre
Sun 1/22 Phoenix, AZ Nesbitt/Elliott Playhouse
Tue 1/24 Denver, CO The Oriental Theater
Wed 1/25 Dallas, TX Curtain Club
Fri 1/27 St. Charles, IL Arcada Theater
Sat 1/28 Cleveland, OH Beachland Ballroom
Sun 1/29 Toronto, ONT. Mod Room
Tue 1/31 Montreal, QUE. Club Soda
Wed 2/1 Quebec City, QUE. Salle Jean-Paul Tardif
Thu 2/2 New York, NY Highline Ballroom
Fri 2/3 Washington, D.C. State Theater
Feb 7 – 11 Tampa, FL Cruise To the Edge
Wed 3/22 Barcelona, Spain Apolo
Thu 3/23 Milan, Italy TBA
Fri 3/24 Pratteln, Switzerland Z7
Sat 3/25 Aschaffenburg, Germany Colo-Saal
Sun 3/26 Berlin, Germany Lido
Tue 3/28 Warsaw, Poland Progresja Music Zone
Wed 3/29 Hamburg, Germany Markthalle
Thu 3/30 Verviers, Belgium Spirit of 66
Fri 3/31 Cologne, Germany Stollwerck
Sat 4/1 Malmo, Sweden KB
Sun 4/2 Tilburg, Netherlands O13
Tue 4/4 Luxembourg City, Luxembourg Rockhal
Wed 4/5 Paris, France Divan Du Monde
Thu 4/6 Birmingham, U.K. O2 Academy 2
Fri 4/7 Glasgow, U.K. O2 ABC 1
Sat 4/8 Manchester, U.K. O2 Ritz
Sun 4/9 London, U.K. O2 Islington Academy
Mon 4/12 Tel Aviv, Israel Havana Club
Sun 5/6 Gettysburg, PA Rites of Spring festival
