Neal Morse & The Resonance is the new band from Neal Morse (Transatlantic, Flying Colors) and a brand new set of young musicians from his local Tennessee area, who brought with them a sense of newness and immediacy.

Their new album entitled, No Hill For A Climber, will be released on November 8 via InsideOut Music; the title is taken from a resonant line in Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead.

Earlier today, October 28, Morse shared a video of his first writing session with The Resonance, which took place in January 2024. In the clip below, Neal says to the band, "Let me play you this thing that I thought of on the plane." That "thing" is an early demo of "No Hill For A Climber".

“Awesome album! I can safely say this will be a fave of the year for me!” – Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, The Winery Dogs)

Faithful to any Neal Morse prog album, No Hill For A Climber features two epics (the 28 minute "No Hill For A Climber" and "Eternity In Your Eyes", which clocks in at 22 minutes) as well as three shorter songs: "Ever Interceding", "All The Rage" and "Thief". The latter, Morse admits, is his current favorite: “It’s so different… it’s in all these different sections, and I’m really happy with the way each part has come out. It’s pretty crazy. There’s even a really cool King Crimson-style instrumental bit in the middle that Chris Riley originally came up with at the Radiant School a couple of years ago.”

For all of these reasons, Morse believes that the whole album is unique, but notes that “if I was going to compare its structure to an album I've done in the past, it might be along the lines of Bridge Across Forever or Spock's Beard’s V; it’s not that it sounds at all like those albums, it’s just structurally similar. It has voices and playing styles and soundscapes that many people will have never heard before! Everyone you work with changes you a little bit, so even I sound a little different on this one, but I hope that everyone will love it!”

The album will be available as Limited 2CD Digipak (incl. a second disc of instrumentals), Standard CD Jewelcase, Gatefold 2LP & as Digital Album. Pre-order here.

Tracklisting:

"Eternity In Your Eyes"
"Thief"
"All The Rage"
"Ever Interceding"
"No Hill For A Climber"

No Hill For A Climber has its roots at the end of 2023, as Morse explains: “I started thinking about what I was going to do in 2024,  and my wife suggested that I should think about doing something with the amazingly talented younger guys that we have here locally - like Chris Riley, Andre Madatian and Philip Martin. I knew just how good they were from playing with them at our Christmas concerts and other events.”

These local musicians were supplemented by Joe Ganzelli (drums) and Johnny Bisaha, who performs much of the lead vocal work, as Morse explains: “While composing No Hill For A Climber, I was hearing a lot of higher range vocals - so I contacted Johnny Bisaha, who came over, listened to the music. loved it and started singing for me. And I immediately thought, ‘Oh man, he's the guy!’.”