Spock's Beard Returns with The Archaeoptimist
Prog rock giants release their first new album since 2018.
Thank you for spending part of your day with Michael’s Record Collection. Bands well out of the mainstream don’t tend to have the quickest turnaround between albums, and as those bands age, those albums come fewer and farther between. Such is the case of Spock’s Beard, which is set to release its first album since Noise Floor in 2018 — a break of seven years!
I recently caught up with vocalist, guitarist, and keyboardist Ted Leonard to find out more about it.
Let’s get to that story.
Spock’s Beard formed in California in 1992 and has been a big part of the vanguard that led progressive rock’s continued fight against oblivion since the giant bands of the 1970s faded from the charts. Across the 33 years of the band’s existence, Spock’s Beard has undergone surprisingly few lineup changes, with none more seismic than vocalist, main songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Neal Morse departing in 2002 to pursue his personal spiritual path after the release of the band’s sixth album — the double conceptual masterpiece Snow.
As with classic prog rockers Genesis, Spock’s Beard dealt with losing its lead singer by having the band’s drummer come out from behind the kit to front the band. Nick D’Virgilio — spoiler alert, he’s my subject for next week — continued to drum on the albums and provided the lead vocals, with Jimmy Keegan becoming the live drummer. The band has always used multiple singers in complex ways, and D’Virgilio’s voice was well-known to fans, so it seemed a natural move, just as it was when Phil Collins took over singing duties when Peter Gabriel left Genesis.
Eventually, Nick too moved on after four albums as lead vocalist — in 2011 due to personal reasons and largely because of other musical commitments — and Enchant front man Ted Leonard stepped in as the new lead vocalist, with Keegan becoming a full band member behind the kit (before ultimately leaving in 2016).
Leonard sounded nothing like D’Virgilio, who sounded completely different than Morse. Yet Spock’s beard continued to write, record, and release inventive, quality progressive rock.
“Ted’s Beard” is back with the fourth album since he took over as vocalist, with The Archaeoptimist, set to drop Friday from Madfish Music. What makes the album unique in the band’s catalog is that the writing was largely a collaboration between keyboardist Ryo Okumoto and Michael Whiteman from I Am the Manic Whale. The duo had formed a formidable writing partnership on Okumoto’s 2022 solo album, The Myth of the Mostrophus, which not-so-coincidentally featured lead vocals by both D’Virgilio and Leonard. [Side note: I wrote about that release a while back.]
“Ryo has writing credits at various times since Neal left but not a ton,” Leonard said. “And so, to have an album that’s predominantly written by him and Michael Whiteman, who I’m presuming wrote all of the lyrics and (vocal) melodies — knowing Ryo’s style and everything, the music is largely his, I would say. I’m sure Michael contributed there too, probably at the task of taking two completely different things and finding a way to transition them, if I know Ryo — he writes parts, you know.”
The Archaeoptimist is a blend of styles that encompasses all eras of Spock’s Beard, from its most classic sounds to new and fresh flavors not previously heard on one of the band’s releases.
The current Spock’s lineup includes:
Ted Leonard – Lead vocals, guitars, keyboards.
Alan Morse – Guitars, vocals.
Dave Meros – Bass, keyboards, vocals.
Ryo Okumoto – Keyboards, vocals.
Nick Potters – Drums, vocals.
Alan Morse, Meros, and Okumoto have been with the band either since the beginning or at least since 1995 (in Okumoto’s case), the year Spock’s Beard released debut album The Light, and are considered classic-era members of the band. Leonard joined in 2011 and first appeared on a studio recording with the Beard two years later on the outstanding Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep. Potters is the new kid on the block, having recently been elevated from live drummer to full band member just this year.
“The (new) material itself had its own energy to it, but what Nick brought to it was an augmentation of that energy,” Leonard said. “I mean, there is a lot of energy behind the drum kit throughout this album, and that’s partly Ryo’s doing too, because Nick is a studio guy, and he’s always being told less is more. And Ryo is like, ‘More is more,’ you know? He was just constantly going, ‘Yeah, that’s great. Do more.’ So, he had basically carte blanche to overplay, which I don’t think is overplaying in this particular context. It’s actually appropriate, but probably compared to every other musical endeavor he’s done before this, he probably felt like it was overplaying.”
In addition to his timing, rhythm, and power, Potters also provided harmony vocals. Leonard said the band’s new full-time drummer has perfect pitch.
As for the songs, Leonard said he was mostly happy with the demos Okumoto and Whiteman put together, especially with the music, but a few of the songs had lyrics that needed to be reworked.
“When we got the demos, they were pretty well formed,” Leonard said. “I mean, they were done, you know, and even by the time I got them, they already had Nick’s drums on them. So, it was all pretty well written. And I got them, and got the lyrics, and there was just a stylistic difference between what I would feel comfortable singing and what Michael would write on a couple different occasions. So, there were really two songs where I said, ‘These need a full rewrite,’ you know, lyrically. Everything else was there.
“The first song, ‘Invisible’ was actually derived from a song that had nothing to do with the subject matter that Al came up with. Completely different song. It was more kind of in line with (The Myth of the) Mostrophus. It was going to be about this mythical creature.”
Leonard went on to describe the mythical creature oddly using flatulence as a weapon, and the original lyrics including a line about staying upwind of the creature.
“That’s not my bag. And so, I was like ‘we’ve got to do a full rewrite,’” he said. “The second song, ‘Electric Monk,’ was great. It was about a fictional character that I’m unaware of, but some of the phrasings in there I thought needed a reworking. So, Al was set to task on both of those (first two songs), and he’s always been a really good lyricist.”
“Invisible” opens the album with an outstanding a capella harmony vocal section and then crashes into a classic bombastic Spock’s Beard opening, complete with Morse’s signature guitar tone wailing in the foreground. Vintage organ sounds will bring a smile immediately to the faces of longtime Beard fans. It’s an upbeat and energetic opener and sets the table for what is to come — an album with music that sounds like classic Spock’s Beard, but with vocals more akin to the band’s last few albums since Leonard joined. The band released “Invisible” ahead of the album as the first single, and it’s a good choice, as it seems likely to build fan enthusiasm for the new record.
If Morse’s guitar in the intro to “Invisible” hadn’t already tipped off listeners that there would be some classic Beard sounds, “Electric Monk” has an intro that closely resembles “Go the Way You Go” off debut album The Light (1995). It’s the shortest song on the album, but it still clocks in at over six minutes. Meros’ bass and Potters’ drums drive the song along as Okumoto’s keyboard chords float over the top. Morse provides some tasty guitar flourishes. The “Go the Way You Go” intro-sounding section returns and leads into a lush, melodic bit with Morse doubling his guitar part, harmonizing with himself. Leonard’s voice is in especially fine form on this one and there’s a lovely delicate piano bit in the second half before the tempo picks up for the big finish.
“Afourthoughts” is the latest in the band’s series of Gentle Giant-esque songs that began with “Thoughts.” In fact, the track on the new album directly references some of the sounds off the original song on Beware of Darkness (1996).
“I kind of liked that,” Leonard said about the new album paying homage to classic Spock’s Beard with some of its borrowed sounds. “I think some people would be like, ‘Well, what are you doing?’ And I thought it was, to me, it was kind of like I always loved the way Sting would refer back to earlier lyrics in the outro of his songs. The rest of Ryo’s writing, even if the sounds are familiar — which there’s a lot familiar with the mellotron. You can’t get away from the organ and mellotron sounds, and having that tied to Spock’s’ earlier sound. But at the same time, the chord progressions and just kind of the approach Ryo has, has much more of like a fusion or jazz element.”
After somewhat mimicking the “Thoughts” opening, Ryo deviates from it and builds on it, and then the entire song just takes off like a bullet train at breakneck speed. Aside from Okumoto’s keyboard pyrotechnics, Morse plays some blistering guitar leads. The breathless pace finally slows, with acoustic guitar coming in and the inevitable lead and counterpoint vocals section enters. Meros’ bass line underneath this track stands out, and Potters blends in with his bandmates with the kind of drumming expected out of Spock’s Beard in the grand tradition of D’Virgilio and Keegan.
There’s an a capella layered vocal section reminiscent of old Beard favorites, paying tribute to the masters, Gentle Giant, because of course there is. Okumoto takes turns blasting through organ and piano solos in the song’s back half over a jazzy-funky tempo kept perfectly by Potters and Meros. It’s a testament to the current lineup that this song can stand alongside Spock’s Beard classics like “Thoughts,” “Gibberish,” and “Thoughts Part 2.”
“St. Jerome in the Wilderness” stretches to nearly nine minutes and opens with a musical reference that sounds like an alternate version of the intro to “Walking on the Wind” from Beware of Darkness. Okumoto throwing in these nuggets could be distracting to some, but for me they don’t overstay their welcome and there is just enough variation introduced to take it as an Easter Egg for longtime fans rather than an attempt to be overly sly, although each listener will need to make up their own mind on it.
I love the twists and turns in “St. Jerome in the Wilderness,” and it features some of Okumoto’s finest piano work over some fantastic subtle bass from Meros. Morse and Okumoto also have some nice combined guitar/keyboard duets and there’s another scorching guitar solo just past the five-minute mark that shows Morse can still go absolutely mental on his instrument. Potters holds it all together with top-notch work on the kit. The song might have as many changes in it as the 21-minute title track, but crammed into less than nine minutes, it’s breathtaking.
The title track follows and it’s a doozy. “The Archaeoptimist” is the longest song of the Ted Leonard era and the longest individual Spock’s Beard track since the 27-minute masterwork “The Great Nothing” on V (2000).
“I hadn’t really delved into the epic yet, but it was (originally) a song called ‘The Destructionist,’ and it was about kind of a bully-ish political figure,” Leonard said of the original demo for “The Archaeoptimist.” “My understanding was that it was not about anybody specific, but at the same time, I’m not interested in singing about anything political, anything that can even be construed that way, regardless of what the inspiration was. So, I told Ryo that this needs a full rewrite, too, but we’re talking about four and a half pages of lyrics. And he’s like, ‘Well, you’ve got to do it because we don’t have much time.’ It was actually a really fun experience.”
The title song has a big opening instrumental with Potters rolling through his drum kit over a doubled Morse guitar part, organ chords, and Meros’ rumbling bass work for a minute before breaking into a lovely main theme. A good listen on the headphones nicely separates the harmonized Morse guitar line.
After the opening verses, there’s a Pink Floyd-sounding keyboard sequence, followed by some mellotron chords and Meros’ funky bass over a brilliant, shuffling Potters drum figure. Potters and Meros provide the foundation for a nice chunk of melodic soloing — both keyboard and guitar — before the vocals return.
Lyrically, Leonard wove a complete fictitious story, which is a bit outside his comfort zone.
“Anybody who’s familiar with my writing over the years (knows) I don’t do a whole lot of fiction,” he said. “It’s mostly autobiographical or it’s about an experience that somebody else I know has experienced. Very few songs that I can think of were just straight-up fiction. And so, this was a departure for me, and it wasn’t an intentional departure either. The first few lines were just kind of mumbling, as a lot of songwriters do. You almost get phrasing before you get words sometimes. A couple lines came out and it just started me down a path to write that story line. And it was a little influenced by The Why Files. One of the episodes was on this pole-shift theory which is a proposed explanation for extinction events. So that was the image that was going through my mind. I was like, ‘What would that be like to be one of those people that had to kind of repopulate the planet or start over?
“And I just cooked up a story about a father and daughter going through that, and the daughter has this innately optimistic kind of outlook. And, you know, obviously the adults around her have watched civilization literally get wiped off the planet, so not a whole lot of cheeriness going on in that tribe. So she becomes this kind of source for joy and optimism in the tribe and has this incessant need to dig around to find like any evidence she can find of the the previous civilization that she’s heard stories about. I didn’t mention it, but she was born after the cataclysmic event, you know. So anyway, that’s the basis of the story.”
There’s a wonderfully Toto-esque section for part of the story, with hints of jazz and funk wrapped up in a rock package. Morse chips in a reverb-drenched guitar solo in the middle instrumental section before Okumoto solos using Hammond organ sounds.
The father in the story encourages his optimistic daughter, marveling over the most mundane objects she finds from the lost world, including a key (and “The Key” was the song’s original title after the lyric rewrite, according to Leonard). Those verses lead into another instrumental section that again showcases Morse’s unique approach to lead guitar. More twists and turns in the back half of the song include a funky section and one that’s downright metal, with yet another guitar solo.
Album closer “Next Step” has an intro reminiscent of Spock’s Beard’s classic “The Doorway,” without ripping it off outright.
“There were a few moments where Ryo was pretty blatant about what he was referring to,” Leonard said. “Even the beginning of ‘Next Step’ is like ‘The Doorway.’”
Okumoto shows off his piano prowess and then jumps onto his other keyboards as Morse scorches through an intro section on guitar, with Potters and Meros powering the song along. The track is just a tick under 11 minutes long, providing back-to-back epics to end the album. What’s impressive is the array of keyboards Okumoto plays on the track, flitting back and forth between piano, Hammond organ, and mellotron. There’s also a lovely acoustic guitar bit in the middle with keyboard accompaniment that sounds like something Genesis might have written around the Nursery Cryme sessions.
Overall, it’s a nice, melodic track with strong vocal work (both lead and backing). It brings The Archaeoptimist to a satisfying close.
The Archaeoptimist will likely appeal to fans of both the classic Spock’s Beard lineup’s output and those who have enjoyed the modern era of the band with Leonard on vocals. There’s a little something for everyone on this album, and the nods to old Spock’s Beard songs are — to me, anyway — nice fan service from the band without becoming too gimmicky. Okumoto, with writing partner Whiteman, has finally arrived as a strong writing force, which should serve Spock’s Beard and his solo work well in the future.
“I would say, blatantly, that there’s a lot of the moments on this album which I love, because, you know, like the rest of us, I’m a huge fan of those Neal (Morse)-era albums and stuff,” Leonard said.
The Archaeoptimist is available on Nov. 21 digitally, on CD, or vinyl (including red vinyl) and there’s a bundle that includes a DVD with 5-1 mixes. Pre-orders are already ongoing. The band has some European shows lined up for 2026 to promote the new album.
Tracklist:
Invisible (6:34)
Electric Monk (6:16)
Afourthoughts (7:31)
St. Jerome in the Wilderness (8:46)
The Archaeoptimist (20:57)
Next Step (10:58)
Learn more about Spock’s Beard at the band’s official website and get links to locations where you can stream/purchase the new album at www.spocksbeard.com.
For my full interview with Ted Leonard, check out the video below or download/stream Episode 162 of the Michael’s Record Collection podcast. In addition to discussing the new album, Ted was kind enough to talk about his musical background and influences, Enchant’s current status, rewriting the lyrics to the new album’s title track, and much more. Big thanks to Ted for doing the interview while dealing with a pinched nerve in his back.
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