Now Spinning Music Magazine - Artist Interviews and Music Reviews · Phil Aston

Neal Morse on L.I.F.T.: Faith, Belonging & Why This Album Changes Everything

·33 min·2 clips

Neil Morse says a therapist’s phrase became “shame about my shame,” then turned into a song.

Lift, not L-I-F-T, gets the careful listen here. Phil Aston welcomes Neil Morse back by placing the record in a long run of songs about faith, doubt, belonging, loss, redemption, and progressive music that pays you back when you sit with it. The mood is warm right away. Phil does not treat the album like a routine release-cycle stop. He asks what the press release means by a period of major transition, and Neil answers plainly. The excerpt suggests some of that shift is tied to Mike returning to another musical commitment, but the talk keeps finding its way back to the songs. Then Phil zooms in. A hotel-room sketch becomes a full band song, and his reaction is pure close-listener excitement. The solo is the thing. He hears it as David Gilmorey and Floydy, drifting through an epic chorus with enough feeling to change the air in the room. Neil gently corrects the credit. Eric plays the other solos, but this one is Neil's, and that opens the better question: what happens when you write the lyrics and then play over them? Phil hears another verse in the guitar. Neil says he wanted that solo because Eric is stronger on the fast, heavy, exciting parts, while this track needed a different feel. That is where the exchange clicks. Technique matters, sure, but the conversation keeps coming back to placement, to who should play what, and why the simpler line may carry more of the song. Reaching comes next. Phil calls it another favorite, catches the multi-tracked vocals at the start, and follows the lift of the track instead of turning it into arrangement notes. The close leaves the fan-community door open. neilmorse.com gets mentioned for gigs, the album is said to arrive on February 27, and Phil points listeners toward the podcast, YouTube channel, ad-free site, patrons, private communities, merch, and the virtual pub.

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