Customer Reviews

Out Standing In Their Field

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Back to the Southern Steel style! Some great rock, some smoother songs, an amazing country song and ends up with a classical piece. Highly recommended for every SMB fan.

I'll keep it short. I've listened once and aside from a couple of tunes that I didn't really connect with initially this is a great album. Fresh sound. I think Steve's best since coast to coast. Definitely a good purchase for any Steve Morse fan.

Steve Morse is one of the greatest guitarists in the world. "Out Standing In Their Field" highlights Steve's incredible versatility as a composer and performer. His country roots are on full display, but as quick as lightning delicate melody lines appear, and just as quickly hard rock riffs appear and dissolve into jazz. The Steve Morse Band also features bass master Dave LaRue and drummer Van Romaine: the three of them meld into an amazing sonic collage, with amazingly tight interplay between them.

This is a purely instrumental album, and that's a good thing: this music needs no distractions from lyrics, and is strong from the first to the last track. Although there's not a dud on the CD, my favorites are the rollicking opening track "Name Dropping" and the fabulous Celtic-influenced rocker "Flight of the Osprey."

"Out Standing In Their Field" is a great CD for anyone who appreciates excellence of musicianship, and I recommend the album highly, especially to those who know Steve Morse mostly for his work with Deep Purple. While I recommend listening to most anything from Deep Purple, if that's the only place you've heard Morse do yourself a favor and broaden your horizons with this CD. You won't be sorry. There was no question from the first measure of "Name Dropping" that this CD deserved five stars.

For an old Dregs fan like me, this CD is a gift from the music gods. I picked up a copy at a show Friday night and have been slamming it ever since. The diversity of the music styles for the song selection and the precision of the playing from all three guys (plus Kevin!) is wonderful.

I've always loved hearing Steve and the boys play the old Dregs stuff in concert, but it's never been the same. They only have the three guys and that music was written to be so much bigger and fuller. This album, on the other hand, is written for these three musicians and they play the hell out of it. John Deere Letter, Time Junction and Brink of the Edge really stand out for me and the overall production is excellent. I have enjoyed several listens on my laptop with my Grado SR60s where it is really clean and powerful, but it just gets better and better on the "full on" home system.

I have tried to like the Deep Purple stuff but it never clicked as much for me, and even a lot of the SMB stuff over the years has been too much of the "power trio" or the overwhelming "wall of sound" style. This album captures the power and intensity of three great musicians and still has the control and beauty that the Dregs always had for me.

Rock On!

Steve Morse is back with perhaps his best effort to date. The Steve Morse Band is a trio of musicians who create and play some of the most powerful and evocative instrumental music around today. This one hearkens back to earlier recordings, like Coast to Coast and Southern Steel, and include powerhouse hard rock tracks like "Name Dropping", beautiful and slower tempo tracks like "Unnamed Sources", country rock style tracks, "John Deere Letter", and the classic acoustic duo "Baroque N Dreams". It's a little formulaic in this regard, but this does not detract from the power, beauty, and intensity of the music. This is a must have for Steve Morse fans.

This is arguably the best CD Steve Morse has put out ... it has some absolutely stunning music on it.

The problem is, I have 2 or 3 prototypes of this album in my collection already, both in terms of the actual music, and in terms of the album format.

If you don't have Stressfest, Southern Steel, Coast to Coast, Split Decision etc etc then rush out and buy this fabulous CD right now !!

If you do have them, you will at times wonder if you are hearing a reworked "best of" ....

Steve ... do something different, please .. you are a consummate musician, and I would love perhaps a concept album, something with classical instrumentation, an opera .. ANYTHING that is different

For anyone who can appreciate great musicianship, this is just one stop on the trip to guitar excellence. This gentleman is arguably the best guitarist on the planet for decades. Since he catapulted himself to fame with "Take it off the Top", Steve has blazed the path for other eclectic artists such as Johnson, Vai and Satriani. This album launches in typical Morse style,getting in your face immediately with "Name Dropping".His other influences are evident with the humorously titled "John Deere Letter" and barouque tinged tunes. If you look forward to every new release by Steve as I do, you will not be disappointed by his newest release.