Transatlantic have announced a new album “The Absolute Universe”– the multinational progressive rock supergroup featuring vocalist/keyboardist Neal Morse (Spock’s Beard, The Neal Morse Band), drummer Mike Portnoy (Sons of Apollo, ex-Dream Theater), bassist Pete Trewavas (Marrilion) and guitarist Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings). – “The Absolute Universe,” will be their fifth full-length album and is scheduled to be released in February next year, via InsideOut Music.
For the upcoming album, the band have created two versions of the record: “The Absolute Universe: The Breath Of Life” (Abridged Version) and “The Absolute Universe: Forevermore” (Extended Version). Each album will be available on CD, LP & Digitally. But there will also be what has been called “The Absolute Universe: The Ultimate Edition,” which collects both versions together in one lavish package that includes 5LP’s, 3CD’s & a Blu-ray that contains a 5.1 surround sound mix with visuals & a behind the scenes documentary. All editions have unique artwork created by Thomas Ewerhard.
Speaking about the upcoming album, drummer Mike Portnoy says, “we’ve got two versions of this album. There is a two CD presentation, which is 90 minutes long, and a single one – that’s 60 minutes. However, 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. Some of the song titles have also been changed, while others might remain the same, but compositionally what you’ll hear has been altered. You must appreciate that what we have done is unique. We revamped the songs to make the two versions different.”
Bassist Pete Trewavas adds, “we did write some new music for the single CD. What’s more, there are also differences in the instruments used on some of the tracks across the two records.”
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