Neal Morse has shared a video for his second single, the dark and moody Thief, from his latest project, Neal Morse & The Resonance, who will release their debut album, No Hill For A Climber, through InsideOut Music on November 8.
The new project features Morse and a selection of local younger musicians, singer Johnny Bisaha, who handles much of the lead vocal work, Chris Riley (bass), Andre Madatian (guitar), Philip Martin (drums) and Joe Ganzelli (drums).
"Thief had an interesting writing process," Morse explains. "I woke up from a very deep afternoon nap with this idea of people singing ‘thief’ in these high voices and then saying stuff in between. It was really weird. But I thought it might be cool. So I wrote the beginning part and then had no idea where to go.
"I phoned Chris Riley who lives close by and he came over and he had the idea to put in the kind of evil-sounding middle section. The drum beat has a kind of hip-hop feel which was not my idea at all. I had written it with a swing feel, and when Joe Ganzelli came in to do a drum track on it, that was his idea! I think it really makes the song special and different."
The five-track No Hill For A Cimber, which takes its title from a resonant line in Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead, also features two epic prog tracks, opener Eternity In Your Eyes and the closing title track, both of which clock in at over 20-minutes, as well as three shorter pieces and is described by Morse as "along the lines of Bridge Across Forever or Spock's Beard’s V."
No Hill For A Cimber will be available as a limited 2CD digipak (including a second disc of instrumentals), standard CD jewelcase, gatefold 2LP and as a digital album. You can see the album artwork and tracklisting below.
