Flying Colors: Second Flight: Live At The Z7

The prog supergroup’s second live album.

By Johnny Sharp
( Classic Rock )
published

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

Can it only have been two years since prog-pop supergroup Flying Colors released Live In Europe, to follow up their studio debut from 2012?

Of course it can. Even though they’ve only released one album of new material since, last year’s Second Nature, it’s standard practice in prog circles these days to serve your insatiable fanbase in-between times with live versions of the same material, deluxe editions and Blu-rays in galactophonic surround sound.

And to be fair to Steve Morse and his all-star line-up, they’re never short of the musicianly chops to make these on-stage readings sound fresh. Highlights of this show from Switzerland include a highly atmospheric Cosmic Symphony, followed by a throbbing, malevolent Shoulda Woulda Coulda.

Regular dazzling instrumental flurries from both Morse brothers and perennial acolyte Mike Portnoy heighten the sense that you’re still getting your money’s worth.

Johnny Sharp
Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock.