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The opening track Invisible begins with a dramatic 25-second slice of a cappella, as a cavalcade of voices croon ‘hello out there, can you see me… I hope it’s not right, but I feel that I might be turning invisible’. Cheekily, it’s not actually a taster of what’s to come, although Spock’s Beard will do it again with even more vocal pyrotechnics, on Afourthoughts. As we ought to know after 33 years and, now, 14 albums, it’s hard to predict what they’re going to do in the next minute, let alone over a whole album.
Some of the basics remain on their first album since 2018’s relatively tentative Noise Floor. The Californians are still as complex as Yes – Going For The One era mostly, oddly enough - and they scatter harmonies like Beach Boys-sponsored confetti, all while sounding as crisp as a Walkers ready salted.
And if you want prog you’ve got it, mostly on the epic title track, their first song to break the 20-minute barrier since 2000’s The Great Nothing. It begins with guitar pyrotechnics, takes a stentorian turn or seven and dips into AOR. And the remaining 17 minutes are just as intriguing.
Yet, there are new worlds to conquer. Spock’s Beard have never sounded quite so urgent, quite so in your face and (somehow) quite as up to date, whether it’s the sizzling Dream Theater-esque guitars of St. Jerome In The Wilderness or the moment Electric Monk brings out their inner REO Speedwagon. More than anything though, as founder member and guitarist Alan Morse’s influence wanes, that of keyboardist Ryo Okumoto waxes. For all that it’s a jamboree of sounds and styles, more than anything The Archaeoptimist is a keyboards album.
Okumoto introduces Next Step with a bravura solo display of pure piano, but he’s across almost every track, mostly offering walls of synthesiser sheen somewhere between caped keyboard crusader Rick Wakeman, Tears For Fears and, especially on Invisible after that red herring opening, Nice-period Keith Emerson.
Like the best modern prog rock, The Archaeoptimist reveals more and more at every new sitting. And if there were to be a takeaway from this impressive barrel of invention, it’s that complexity need not be inaccessible. After all those albums, all those decades and a Stakhanovite touring schedule, Spock’s Beard ought to know what they’re doing. The joy is that they really do.
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