Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It is our own story that we dance to, that we sit and think back over all the occasions we did something extraordinary, that we perhaps didn’t live up to our own sense of self or impossibly high standards. It is the Life & Times in which we remember over a large glass of smoky whisky, with friends staring into the fire as we toast marsh mellows, when we are alone and the darkness comes calling, it is the Life & Times in which we must celebrate or in which we must atone.
Neal Morse has arguably an awful lot to celebrate in a career that has seen him as one of the great exponents of Progressive Rock and the wider circle of music, it is in his life that perhaps sometimes things didn’t go to plan, that the weight of expectation was too much and this in itself is not a bad point, we all have to go through such moments to come out the other side, perhaps changed, more than likely more appreciative of the next chapter to come.
The album is more than personal, it is one that is also is not afraid to open up possible scars, of understanding the man arguably more than he has been able to show before, of being determined to love the skin we all inhabit, of connecting not only with those that take our words and hold them close but with ourselves, of being kind even when we make the mistakes that others hold us more than accountable for, they positively relish our doubt and sense of shame.
In tracks such as JoAnne, Good Love is on the Way, the heartbreaking He Died At Home, War on the Ocean and Manchester, Neal Morse goes the extra mile and truly looks the music in the face and confirms what he has always known, that art is a labour of love that is often unrewarded except for the self worth that it installs into the one perspiring in the dark hours and when the feeling of bravado is low and conformity a thought worth considering.
A marvellously passionate album, a sense of endeavour in the darkness which has seen the light, Life & Times, it is all we can hope for that we remember the good and the flawed with equal love.
Ian D. Hall