Steve Morse – Flying Colors

Flying Colors – Music Theories MTR 73642. April 2012

I actually had quite high hopes of this release, given the way Steve Morse and his cohorts have got behind it with lots of interviews and so forth. Yet in the end I found it a very unsatisfying album, simply because his guitar playing is very sublimated within a sort of West Coast AOR rock sound. It opens up with promise; Blue Ocean is a lengthy piece with lots of nice guitar and while the vocals aren’t the strongest it doesn’t really matter too much in context. Shoulda Coulda Woulda kicks up something of a storm to follow and is perhaps the best track overall for me. From here on it all began to merge into one, largely as the vocals are all on a very similar level. I began pinning my hopes on the set closer, a ten minute plus track called Infinite Fire, but in vain. A kind of Yes meets Jeff Beck style jazz-rock epic ought to work from players of this calibre, but it fails to top either of those two acts.
Steve Morse fans will enjoy the guitar I’m sure but there’s not really enough of it, and I suspect many will fall back on his solo work (tellingly there isn’t one instrumental on offer here) looking for something with a little more bite. Great cover image though, looks terrific on the vinyl version.

The album is available through the DTBOnline store in both CD (including a limited digipak version) and vinyl editions.

The project have their own web site at flyingcolorsmusic.com/