A Spock's Beard review on Metal Asylum? Dammit, they're a Prog band, not a Metal band! Anyone familiar with their catalog would agree! Anyone familiar with their catalog would also agree, however, that this is a band that fears no heavy riff, and that they wield their metal edge with skill. It's logical.

So - - "The First 20 Years" is a double-disc best of, the kind that could never feel complete. While there are a few glaring omissions, this is actually a pretty good representation of their entire career, showcasing some of the best from the 2 major eras of the band: with and without Neal Morse. The 15 song choices have favored the epics, so there are about as many tracks on this double album as you'd find on a single-length record for many other bands. Things kick off with ;The Light;, which is one of the important songs that launched the band's career. The rest of the journey will serve as a decent introduction to their melody-driven hard prog, embedded with the influences of Rush, Yes, and Lennon-McCartney-Harrision - - pre and post Beatles, for newcomers and red shirts to the Spock's Beard sound. I especially like ‘The Bottom Line’. The glaring omissions I mention above are the tracks from ‘Snow’, the band's final album with founding member and captain, Neal Morse, It's hard to call any SB 'best-of' complete without ‘Made Alive/Overture’.

Anyway, the major notable track on the album is the new original: ‘Falling Forever’, which clocks in at 20:02 in length, and features appearances from every member of the band, throughout their history. This is what this album is really about. . . and it's not just a neat gimmick. The song is possibly the best Spock's Beard have ever created. It's a daring, lively, meticulous work that does not feel it's album-side length. I highly recommend it for anyone curious about the band with twenty minutes to spare, and deem it required listening for any SB fan.

Live long and prosper.