Spock's Beard - V (2000)
2018 marks the 20th anniversary of DPRP publishing album reviews. To celebrate, we have asked several former reviewers and some of the long-standing reviewers to take a look back at the album of one of their own reviews and write an article for in the Archives Of Prog section (now part of the Features section).
Also former team member Mattias Norén helped for the occasion by coming up with the image for this series at the top. Take a look at his website ProgArt Media.
In number six in in this series, former reviewer Derk van Mourik takes a look back at an album he rated an 8 back in 2000: Spock's Beard's V.
As I am writing this, it is almost exactly 20 years ago to the day that I first saw Spock's Beard in concert. For a few blissful years after that first encounter, they were my absolute number one favourite live band.
I especially remember the V concerts with much fondness. At the time the album came out, in some corners it was criticized for being derivative of the Beard's previous work. But to me, it was a culmination of that work, and now, 18 years and a steady stream of albums later, that's still how I feel about it.
And it's the epic, The Great Nothing, that still does it for me most. It's got all the Beard trademarks: the ballads (Neal Morse is a balladeer as much as a purveyor of odd time signatures and lengthy instrumentals), the blistering solos, the humour, the stonking bass...
The Great Everything, more like!
Read the original Round Table Review of Spock's Beard - V.
Read the Round Table Review of the Day For Night album in which Derk also participated.