Scott's Spotlight #32-- Transatlantic

May 20, 2025

Scott's Spotlight #32-- Transatlantic

Originally Posted to Facebook on May 8, 2025

Link to Post:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EEHwUtxuW/

Welcome to Scott’s Spotlight (#scottsspotlight) issue #32. For more information about this series, please click here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/Gc2VkwHQWGLdeaDd/?mibextid=oFDknk

This week, I am featuring a prog supergroup, with four members, each of which had the band from which they are most associated with get their own spotlight feature from me. Of course I am talking about Transatlantic. The line-up consists of:

Neal Morse: Keyboards/Lead Vocals/Guitars (Originally from Spock’s Beard, later of Neal Morse Band, Flying Colors and currently Cosmic Cathedral, among others)

Roine Stolt: Guitars/Lead Vocals (The Flower Kings, Kaipa, The Tangent, Agents of Mercy, and the Sea Within, among others)

Pete Trewavas : Bass/Vocals (Marillion, Edison’s Children, Kino, The Wishing Tree)

Mike Portnoy: Drums/Vocals (Dream Theater, Neal Morse Band, Sons of Apollo, Flying Colors, Liquid Tension Experiment, among others)

These are some of the most respected musicians in modern prog music. I will post links to the 4 spotlights on their “main” bands below the article.

The concept for a prog supergroup with the finest players came from Portnoy in 1999. He first reached out to Neal Morse, who agreed to join with Mike. They initially intended to have Jim Matheos of Fates Warning on guitar, but he was unable to join. They then reached out to Roine Stolt, with whom Portnoy had been corresponding since 1997 when their two bands played at that year’s LA Progfest in California. They next added Pete Trewevas, as Portnoy had been a long time Marillion fan, and felt that Trewavas would be able to complement Portnoy’s complex rhythms and provide a solid tonal foundation. With the lineup complete, they now needed a name. Originally they tried on “Second Nature”, but wisely chose Transatlantic, which symbolizes the band members’ home countries being on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean (Portnoy and Morse from the USA, Stolt from Sweden, and Trewavas from the U.K.).

The foursome met for the first time in a recording studio in upstate New York. Each of the four musicians brought ideas that they had written. During these rehearsal sessions, the quartet molded the raw ideas into songs that combined the best of modern prog rock with some pop/rock sensibilities. The result was four of the five songs on their debut album “SMPT: e” recorded in the summer of 1999, but not released until March 2000. The album’s title is based on the initials of their last names: “Stolt Morse Portnoy Trewavas”, and SMPTE is also a type of time coding used in recording. The showcase of the album is the 30 minute opening epic: “All of the Above”, which in my opinion is a classic of modern prog music. Other original songs on the album include “We All Need Some Light,” “Mystery Train,” and the 16 minute “My New World”. The other song is a cover of Procol Harum’s classic epic “In Held (‘Twas) in I.” The album was quite successful (by modern prog standards) and even made the main album charts in Germany. A successful tour and live album followed called “Transatlantic: Live in America”.

The supergroup quickly followed up with the second album, called “Bridge Across Forever” in 2001. The title track is actually the short track on the album, at around 5 minutes in length. The other three are “Duel with the Devil” (26:43), “Suite Charlotte Pike” (14:30) and the absolutely amazing “Stranger in Your Soul” (26.05). This is probably my favorite Transatlantic album (see my review, linked below). As with the first album, they followed it up with a live album after the tour, “Live in Europe” released in 2003. The foursome were augmented by Daniel Gildenlöw of prog-metal band Pain of Salvation on additional guitars, keys, and vocals, during the tour to support the album (see my review of POS’ “Remedy Lane” linked below). Notably on this live album the “Suite Charlotte Pike Medley” connected the “Side 2 Medley” from The Beatles legendary “Abbey Road” album to their own song.

During this time, Neal Morse left Spock’s Beard (see the spotlight for more) in 2002 then Transatlantic in 2003. Portnoy felt like it would not be appropriate to carry on Transatlantic without him, so he disbanded Transatlantic. The end…

…Or is it?

Around 2008 or 2009, Neal Morse was working on a new song for his solo career as a Christian prog rock performer. As the song began to emerge, Morse realised that this would make a great Transatlantic song. Portnoy had continued to work with Morse, playing drums for his solo band (later renamed the Neal Morse Band -NMB), and when Morse played the demo for Portnoy, he wholeheartedly agreed. The two reached out to Stolt and Trewavas, who agreed to come aboard, and Transatlantic was back! And in a huge way. The album “The Whirlwind” was released in 2009. It contained one song (albeit divided into 12 sections on the CD) called “The Whirlwind” that clocks in at a whopping 77:54! On the ensuing tour, Daniel Gildenlöw, toured with the band again (my review of this album is linked below). The album/song/suite was performed in its entirety on the tour and was documented on not one but TWO triple CD live albums from that tour: “Whirld Tour 2010 - Live From Shepherd's Bush Empire, London” released in 2010, and “More is Never Enough- Live in Manchester and Tilburg 2010”, released in 2011. Both albums contain the same songs in the same running order. Both albums have accompanying DVDs with different material.

In between Transatlantic albums, the NMB and The Flower Kings toured together in February of 2013. As ¾ of Transatlantic were involved in the tour (Morse, Portnoy and Stolt), the Transatlantic related encore was inevitable. Of course these guys don’t do small. So not only did the three TA members perform TA songs with Randy George (of NMB) and Jonas Reingold (FKs) switching off on bass, members of both bands took part in the extravaganza, with as many as 11 musicians on stage at once.

Not to be outshone by the other 3, Pete Trewavas announced during the Marillion Weekend in the Netherlands in March of 2013, that Transatlantic were reconvening for a fourth studio album that summer. This would soon be confirmed by Neal Morse. The band would come together in Nashville (presumably in Neal Morse’s studio there) to record “Kaleidoscope” released in January of 2014. This release is bookended by 2 epics. “Into the Blue” opens the album at 25:13, while the 31:53 title track is the closer. In between, there are 3 “short” tracks (a relative term in prog): “Shine” (7:28), “Black as the Sky” (6:45) and “Beyond the Sun” (4:31). While the album was successful in many countries (making various charts in several), and was named “Album of the Year” at the 3rd annual Progressive Music Awards, somehow it flew under my radar at the time and I didn’t discover it until a good while later. As such, it is the TA album I am least familiar with. Interestingly, Ted Leonard, Morse’s indirect successor as Spock’s Beard’s vocalist (with Nick D’Virgilio in between the two), was the extra musician on the Kaleidoscope tour (see the Spock’s Beard spotlight for more info), covering additional guitars, keys and vocals. As has become the custom in Transatlantic’s history, a live DVD/CD followed titled “KaLIVEoscope” (2014).

After several years focusing on their various projects and bands (including Flying Colors which included both Portnoy and Morse– see my spotlight on THAT supergroup, linked below), Transatlantic came back together again beginning in September of 2019 to write a new album. Those sessions resulted in a 90 minute epic called “The Absolute Universe,” which was intended to be released in two discs of a double CD. Morse’s busy schedule took him away from focusing on TA for a while, and he recorded and toured a solo album. When he returned his focus to Transatlantic, he felt that he wanted to shorten the piece to just over an hour to be released on a single CD. Upon presenting the shortened version to the other band members, Trewavas agreed with Morse, while Portnoy and Stolt preferred the full 90 minute version. As a compromise, Morse proposed releasing both versions, which was agreed upon by all members of the band as well as the record label. However the shorter version was not a mere edit of the longer one. According to Portnoy:

[...] the single CD is not merely an edited version of the double CD. They each contain alternate versions and even in some cases, new recordings. We wrote fresh lyrics and have different people singing on the single CD version tracks as compared to those on the double CD.

The concept of the album(s) deals with “the world’s troubles in 2020”,and as all of us remember, 2020 was a very troubled year, indeed! Both versions were released simultaneously on February 5, 2021. I prefer the full version subtitled “Forevermore” over the abridged one (subtitled “The Breath of Life”) but both are fantastic! Once again, Transatlantic released two live albums from the following tour, augmented by Ted Leonard again.. The first one released was “Final Flight: Live at L’Olympia,” which is a 3 CD set released in 2023. The next one might be “the mother of all live albums!” The massive 5 CD set: “Morsefest 2022- The Absolute Whirlwind” released in 2024. This behemoth clocks in at 264 minutes and 31 seconds–Nearly 4 and a half hours! The album consists of recordings from 2 sets over two nights at Morsefest.

However, this does seem to be the final chapter for Transatlantic as they say that the “L’Olympia” show from Paris would be their last. In prog though, as long as all of the participants are alive (or even most of them), nothing ever seems to be final. So, who knows, maybe they’ll get the itch to play together again in a few years. That is strictly hopeful speculation on my part, as The Flower Kings just released a new album (review forthcoming) Portnoy is back with Dream Theater, and Morse just formed another supergroup with Phil Keaggy, Byron House and Chester Thompson., called Cosmic Cathedral, and Marillion have a new album on the horizon. What an epic catalog they have given us over the first quarter of the 21st century though!

LINKS FOR LISTENING

From SMPT:e

“All of the Above”:

https://youtu.be/VFmnRbGTimo

“Mystery Train”:

https://youtu.be/Vqm9mG9XIDk

From:

Bridge Across Forever:

“Suite Charlotte Pike”

https://youtu.be/35UJJpJ9euY

“Stranger In Your Soul”

https://youtu.be/5C_b7qP0-88