NMB are set to release their much-anticipated fourth studio album ‘Innocence & Danger’, on August 27th, 2021. Today, the band are pleased to share the video for “Bird On A Wire”, the second single taken from the upcoming album.
Mike Portnoy says this about the track, “This was the 2nd song we wrote for the new album’s sessions. The main riff & groove stemmed from an idea Randy George brought in and the chorus was something Bill had...and the intro and middle shred riffs were Eric’s...another truly collaborative effort!”
Watch the video for the album’s first single “Do It All Again” here:
Watch a clip from “The Making of Innocence & Danger” here:
‘Innocence & Danger’, featuring artwork by Thomas Ewerhard (Transatlantic), will be available as:
• Limited 2CD+DVD Digipak (featuring a Making Of documentary)
• 3LP+2CD Boxset
• Standard 2CD Jewelcase
• Digital Album
The album is available for pre-order here:
Tour dates for NMB - ‘An Evening of Innocence & Danger’ are on sale now across US and Europe here: https://www.nealmorse.com/2021/06/18/nmbtourdates/
May 28th - Madrid, Spain - Teatro Kapital
May 29th - Barcelona, Spain – Apolo
May 30th - Milan, Italy - Live Club
May 31st - Pratteln, Switzerland - Z7
June 2nd - Tilburg, Netherlands – 013
June 3rd - London, England - Shepherds Bush Empire
June 4th - Paris, France – Trianon
June 5th - Esch Sur Alzette, Luxembourg – Rockhal
June 7th - Cologne, Germany - Live Music Hall
June 9th - Brno, Czech Republic – Sono
June 10th - Krakow, Poland - Studio Club
June 11th - Warsaw, Poland – Progresja
June 13th - Hamburg, Germany – Markthalle
June 15th - Copenhagen, Denmark - Amager Bio
June 16th - Gothenburg, Sweden – Pustervik
June 17th - Oslo, Norway – Cosmopolite
June 18th - Stockholm, Sweden - Lilla Cirkus
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With NMB’s previous two releases being concept albums, it’s perhaps remarkable that Innocence & Danger is a series of unrelated songs, but drummer Mike Portnoy says “After two sprawling back to back double concept albums in a row, it was refreshing to get back to writing a collection of unrelated individual songs in the vein of our first album.”
Indeed, making this album came easy to the band; while the initial inspiration came particularly from Bill Hubauer (keyboards) and Randy George (bass), the ideas flowed from everybody from there on, as George recalls: “I am excited about the level of collaboration that we achieved on this one. We even went in with a lot of ideas that weren’t necessarily developed, and I think in the end we have something that represents the best of everybody in the band.”
In fact – like its two acclaimed predecessors – Innocence & Danger is a double album by inspira-tion, rather than design, as Portnoy explains: “As much as we wanted to try and keep it to a sin-gle album after having just done two double albums, we wrote so much material that we found ourselves with our third double album in a row! That’s pretty prog!”
There is also plenty in Innocence & Danger to excite those prog fans who have a thirst for epics, as Neal Morse explains: “There's one half hour epic and another that's about 20 minutes long. I really didn't realize that they were that long when we were recording them, which I guess is great because if a movie is really good, you don't realize that it's three hours long! But there are also some shorter songs: some have poppier elements, some are heavier and some have three part acoustic sections. I’m excited about all of it, really.”
NMB (Neal Morse Band) is:
Neal Morse (vocals, keyboards and guitars)
Mike Portnoy (drums, vocals)
Randy George (bass)
Eric Gillette (guitars, vocals)
Bill Hubauer (keyboards, vocals)
