Transatlantic (Prog Supergroup): Your Favorite Album?

Been getting back into Transatlantic lately after years away.

What's your favorite of their three albums? My favorite song by them is "My New World" from the debut but I think their best album is "Bridge Across Forever." It doesn't have any weak moments like the other two imo. Great stuff!

 

Gotta go with "BAF." Love the weaving of themes throughout the album, and the whole "Abbey Road" approach of "Suite Charlotte Pike." The debut strikes me as a group still finding its feet, and "The Whirlwind" is just too much in one piece.

 

The Whirlwind gets my vote - it's the most complete in my opinion.

 

I like all of them but I would have to go with "Bridge". Smpte I love all the way until In Held Twas I. Whirlwind has some great moments but the overall flow seems a bit off compared to the others.

Btw they are getting back together in May to start work on the next album. I can't wait!!!!

 

I like them all but voted for BAF. Glad they are going back to the studio. Insideout did a nice job with the vinyl release of all their albums in case anyone is interested. I don't know if any of them are available anymore but I enjoy spinning them.

 

I love the middle section of "The Whirlwind" like the sequence of tracks 3-4-5-6-7, but the rest is a bit Morse/Portnoy overload.

 

Love the first one.

 

The new album is up for pre order at Radiant Records.

http://www.radiantrecords.com/products/483-transatlantic-kaleidoscope.aspx

Jan 28, 2014 release date.

 

Really liked Bridge a lot...

 

Sorry for necroposting an old, dead thread, but these guys have long been a favorite of mine (I'll listen to anything Neal Morse and Mike Portnoy play on together). Surely there's got to be more fans than just this handful?

 

One more fan here and the latest ``Kaleidoscope` is my favourite.

 

"Bridge Across Forever" pour moi.

"SMPTe" is patchy, "The Whirlwind" is pretty good, and I haven't taken to "Kaleidoscope".

But "Bridge Across Forever" is my jam.

--Geoff

 

'Bridge Across Forever' is my favorite but by a narrow margin, because I love all of their releases, including the live discs. BAF contains the all time Transatlantic masterpeice, 'Stranger In Your Soul'. Sure would love to see them live, but they don't tour the east coast very much. Their new release, the excellent 'Kaliedescope' should be on the voting list too. Their live DVD's are worth checking out too.

 

^I'm with you, love all their albums. Bridge Across Forever and The Whirlwind are tied for the best with me, SMPTE just a hair behind. Kaleidescope is damn good but I just haven't absorbed it as much (yet) as the first three. I love their live albums, too...they do a great job weaving the Abbey Road medley into their own songs on the Live in Europe set.

 

The first 2 are great - I didn't like anything after that. Kaleidascope bored me I am afraid. 1st album edges it for me - but onle just.

 

I think "All of the Above" alone makes the first album tough to beat. But Bridge Across Forever is just so amazing...the mega-suites that bookend the album are great and "Suite Charlotte Pike" always, at least to me, is what the Beatles would have sounded like if they were a prog band.

 

The Whirlwind. I saw the whole thing played live in Manchester, an amazing concert where they were onstage for 3 1/4 hours, and played 6 songs!!! The Prog-Daughter and myself were glued to the entire show. Amazing stuff. New one's a grower, but it's getting there.

best track still All OfThe Above though.........

Philip

 

What's amazing about "All of the Above" and that entire first album is that they wrote and recorded it in like a week and a half.

Whirldwind is fantastic, you are VERY lucky to have seen them do the whole thing live!

 

The Whirlwind is pretty good, but I gotta go with Kalaidoscope now that I saw them play it live.

 

Bridge Across Forever for me out of the first three - though I love them all including Kaleidoscope. Black as the Sky was great fun live and I love the evocative fade out ending of the title track.

Incidentally, having recently been to a friend's humanist funeral, I'm currently thinking about having either Bridge Across Forever or Beyond the Sun played at my funeral, along with ELP's From the Beginning.

 

Reviving this to recommend Kaleidoscope and the live video release from that tour. Also if you haven't gotten "More Never is Enough" from the Whirlwind tour, it contains one audio only concert and a different concert on DVD, all from the European tour. Really can't get enough.

I am not a Christian, but the Neal Morse release "Morsefest" is incredible. Portnoy is the drummer and the band is amazing. The material is Prog Rock a la Transatlantic but with Christian lyrics, but it is so well performed and the material so good, it should not bother anybody even at its preachiest moments.

Morse and Portnoy also have a Beatles tribute band called Yellow Matter Custard with 2 live DVD releases, which I think you can only buy at the Radiant Records website. Both very good and a ton of fun, even if the video quality is somewhat amateurish.

 

Still Bridge Across Forever. Had it on again in the car for the last week.

Forced myself to rip it out of the player at the end of the week.

Thought Kaleidoscope was the weakest of the four although the live document from that tour was a bit better.

 

Largely agree with you there.

 

Big Neal Morse fan here. Any band/album with him on it is highly recommended, particularly the second Flying Colors album.

 

Sampled the second live Flying Colors release on DVD and Neal does not do a lot here. I don't know what the songwriting split is but it seems to be a Portnoy project where Neal got dragged into. Found the singer to have great potential but not seasoned enough. He bored me and having to keep his eyes down to read lyrics bothered me. Very solid instrumentally and the singing was fine but the material was just average IMO.