Innocence & Danger
Album Info
Innocence & Danger is the fourth album by American progressive rock group The Neal Morse Band (now stylized as "NMB"), released on August 27, 2021. It is Morse's twelfth progressive rock studio album overall.
It is their first non-concept album following The Similitude of a Dream (2016) and The Great Adventure, both inspired by John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. The album was recorded over a week in the beginning of 2021 and for the first time Morse did not bring any demos with his ideas to the studio.
With NMB's previous two releases being concept albums, it's perhaps remarkable that Innocence & Danger is a series of unrelated songs, but drummer Mike Portnoy says "After two sprawling back to back double concept albums in a row, it was refreshing to get back to writing a collection of unrelated individual songs in the vein of our first album."
Indeed, making this album came easy to the band; while the initial inspiration came particularly from Bill Hubauer (keyboards) and Randy George (bass), the ideas flowed from everybody from there on, as George recalls: "I am excited about the level of collaboration that we achieved on this one. We even went in with a lot of ideas that weren't necessarily developed, and I think in the end we have something that represents the best of everybody in the band."
In fact – like its two acclaimed predecessors – Innocence & Danger is a double album by inspiration, rather than design, as Portnoy explains: "As much as we wanted to try and keep it to a single album after having just done two double albums, we wrote so much material that we found ourselves with our third double album in a row! That's pretty prog!"
There is also plenty: "There's one half hour epic and another that's about 20 minutes long. I really didn't realize that they were that long when we were recording them, which I guess is great because if a movie is really good, you don't realize that it's three hours long! But there are also some shorter songs: some have poppier elements, some are heavier and some have three part acoustic sections. I'm excited about all of it, really."
Eric Gillette - Guitar/Vocals
Randy George (Ajalon, Morse/Portnoy/George) - Bass
Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Transatlantic, Morse/Portnoy/George) - Drums/Vocals
Bill Hubauer (ApologetiX) - Keyboards/Vocals
It is their first non-concept album following The Similitude of a Dream (2016) and The Great Adventure, both inspired by John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. The album was recorded over a week in the beginning of 2021 and for the first time Morse did not bring any demos with his ideas to the studio.
With NMB's previous two releases being concept albums, it's perhaps remarkable that Innocence & Danger is a series of unrelated songs, but drummer Mike Portnoy says "After two sprawling back to back double concept albums in a row, it was refreshing to get back to writing a collection of unrelated individual songs in the vein of our first album."
Indeed, making this album came easy to the band; while the initial inspiration came particularly from Bill Hubauer (keyboards) and Randy George (bass), the ideas flowed from everybody from there on, as George recalls: "I am excited about the level of collaboration that we achieved on this one. We even went in with a lot of ideas that weren't necessarily developed, and I think in the end we have something that represents the best of everybody in the band."
In fact – like its two acclaimed predecessors – Innocence & Danger is a double album by inspiration, rather than design, as Portnoy explains: "As much as we wanted to try and keep it to a single album after having just done two double albums, we wrote so much material that we found ourselves with our third double album in a row! That's pretty prog!"
There is also plenty: "There's one half hour epic and another that's about 20 minutes long. I really didn't realize that they were that long when we were recording them, which I guess is great because if a movie is really good, you don't realize that it's three hours long! But there are also some shorter songs: some have poppier elements, some are heavier and some have three part acoustic sections. I'm excited about all of it, really."
Lineup
Neal Morse (Spock's Beard, Morse/Portnoy/George) - Lead Vocals/Keyboards/GuitarsEric Gillette - Guitar/Vocals
Randy George (Ajalon, Morse/Portnoy/George) - Bass
Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Transatlantic, Morse/Portnoy/George) - Drums/Vocals
Bill Hubauer (ApologetiX) - Keyboards/Vocals
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