TransAtlantic

Originally intending to include Fate's Warning[?] guitarist Jim Matheos[?], Morse and Portnoy tapped Flower Kings guitarist/vocalist Roine Stolt when Matheos was unable to participate. The band completed their lineup by adding bassist and progressive rock veteran Pete Trewavas from the group Marillion.

Their first album, 2000's SMPTe (a play on words, as both a combination of the members' last initials, as well as a common machine time protocol used in high end recording studios) was widely lauded by critics.

A subsequent tour of the United States led to a double live CD, Transatlantic Live in America, and a video of the same name. The band showed their musical heritage on the live CD, presenting covers of the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever", as well as Genesis's epic "Watcher of the Skies/Firth of Fifth".

Though SMPTe contained the thirty-one minute opus "All of the Above", the band's second studio album, 2001's Bridge Across Forever, finds the band flexing their muscles in the long form that Progressive Rock is known for. The CD contains just four tracks, the twenty-six minute "Duel With the Devil", the fourteen minute "Suite Charlotte Pike", and the twenty-six minute "Stranger in your soul" making up the bulk of the disc, with the title track coming in at a relatively scant five minutes.

External Links

• TransatlanticWeb (http://www.transatlanticweb.com)