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Triangulation, the album
Steve Morse Band’s new album Triangulation will be released on November 14, 2025, via Mascot Records. The album will feature Steve’s long time collaborators Dave LaRue on bass and Van Romaine on drums, plus guest musicians. Eric Johnson contributed his guitar to TexUS, and John Petrucci did the honours for the title track. Steve’s son Kevin plays on Taken by an Angel (which is a tribute to the late Janine).
That song is new territory for me. It was put together for my late wife’s memorial service, with my son Kevin playing along. It brought tears to many folks’ eyes because Janine was a huge part of my life and career. People knew her from the Steve Morse Band tours. She was the smiling face opening CDs for me to sign, selling t-shirts, listening to people’s stories in the crowd, and taking photos for VIP visits.
The album title Triangulation is derived from the concept of aviators, navigators, and sailors looking at two points to pinpoint their exact location at a specific moment in time.
Dave and Van have been the bedrock of this trio, and this recording shows why. These guys are unique and incredible musicians on their own, and together, our chemistry is magical. While making the album, we played together, working through parts, riffing off each other, and collaborating on arrangements. I’d bring an idea, and hear it instantly — and then hear it improved. We made this album together, and you can hear it.
Track list:
- Break Through
- Off The Cuff
- TexUS (feat. Eric Johnson)
- The Unexpected
- March Of The Nomads (feat. Scott Sim)
- Ice Breaker
- Tumeni Partz
- Triangulation (feat. John Petrucci)
- Taken By An Angel (feat. Kevin Morse)
A video for the opening track Break Through was posted today to accompany the announcement.
This may start with a guitar riff, but the bass carries the melody. It’s just a great feel to play over, and a positive vibe to start the album.
The video was directed by Angel Vivaldi.
The album was produced by Bill Evans.
Play the single, stream and pre-order the album via this link.
Thanks to Tobias Janaschke for the heads-up, and to BraveWords for additional info and quotes.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Dave LaRue is an excellent bassist, especially when he plays melodic parts. I could listen to him all day.
As for Steve’s composition, it contains so many ideas and different parts, plucking them apart would have filled a whole DP album! 😂
September 11th, 2025 at 02:30SMB in the hangar and outside, excellent to see and hear. The maintenance man, he he he, could have been a name for one of the tracks. Good on him, it has as expected, the classic SMB and The Dregs arrangement and why not. Good to hear that Eric Johnson is on a track too. And of course at tribute to Steve’s wife with Kevin Morse also contributing, nice one. Cheers.
September 11th, 2025 at 05:01I like Steve Morse’s guitar playing a lot!
Sorry can’t tell you all those technical terms you guys in here are drooling over 😄
But ohhh man he saved Purple, not only by playing so well, but also with his kind and sweet disposition! He was the balm that cured their pain so to speak ☺️
Don’t think anyone faint when I say RB is my all time favourite, but the massive problems he made for the rest of Purple was devastating 😞
So SM was the best choice and seems to be an alright good guy!
I cheer him on with this new record! Looking forward to dwell into this 😃
September 11th, 2025 at 06:51A very boring piece.
September 11th, 2025 at 09:26Have you all a nice day.
Nicely said Karin!! RB is also my favorite but Steve is an awesome Guitar Player!! The Dregs, at one time, were big here in the Midwest U.S. Looking forward to the new Album!!
September 11th, 2025 at 11:08If you buy the next SMB release, liebe Karin, it will mean a lot to Steve because you will be the first woman to do so! 🤣
September 11th, 2025 at 12:11Oh well !
September 11th, 2025 at 13:15Excellent – such a shame DP didn’t wait for his return.
September 11th, 2025 at 13:58@5
Leslie I tell you that the minute Ian has made a Time Machine of some kind, I’ll jump right in, go back to ‘68 and give Ritchie a good talking to 😄
Of course I’ll be polite and if necessary I’ll gladly kiss the foot soles of his and stroke him gently over his cheeks, but ohh man I will without any questions left explain to him how important it is for the future that he learns to behave properly 😃
Of course I’ll be in some kind of a pickle if he then suggests that his phenomenal playing is caused by his moodiness 😆 but I’ll cross that bridge when and if I get to it.
RB was breathtaking! He was a poet! He had us in his hands – and I am willing to forgive him anything because he is such a talent. But ok, I didn’t have to be in a band with him….
Sorry guys, but I do need to say this: I actually have a homeopathic remedy that could’ve helped him tremendously!
September 11th, 2025 at 14:51Not exaggerating at all! It is a remedy known as the ‘divorce-solving’ remedy 😄
@6
Of course I’ll buy that Uwe!
The first woman you say?! Well, that’s ok for me, because I am known here in my hood for supporting anyone who needs support 😄😄
September 11th, 2025 at 14:53Track 4, “The Unexpected”. The long awaited followup to InFinite’s “The Surprising”, surely.
Happy for Steve and the band. Saw them along with the Dregs last year and had a blast.
September 11th, 2025 at 14:54@6
Hello Uwe,
I bought all Dixie Dregs and SMB CDs I could get my hands on since I “fell in love” with Steve’s compositions and guitar-playing. And I pre-ordered “triangulation” yesterday as soon as my retailer’s mail reached me that the new album will be out in november.
I think there are many more women who love Steve’s music.
I only used to read all the comments here on THS, but since yesterday I decided to share my thoughts with you all.
September 11th, 2025 at 15:39I listened several times to this track. It’s really great. There’s a lot happening in this song. And yes, as Steve says, you can here that the band “made”, not only “played”, this song together. Can’t wait for the album !
September 11th, 2025 at 15:47Karin, if Ian made a time machine, I’d join you in going back to 1968 but, after that, it’s WAY back to the time of the Dinosaurs!! I’d love to see a T-Rex!! 🙂 🙂
September 11th, 2025 at 16:11The song break through contains parts from Money talks starting at 2:28.
September 11th, 2025 at 16:16I am impatient to hear the complete album. Steve Morse Band music is excellent.
@14
Nice Leslie! Then you can hold Ritchie so he doesn’t run off when I’m starting to yell a bit!
T.Rex! Oh yeah, a little bit of Marc Bolan – wonder what Purple would’ve sounded like had MB joined Purple and was singing duets with Ian!
And I guess now that Uwe will link to a video where the two tenors actually sing together arm in arm 😄
September 11th, 2025 at 18:43Well, Ivan, this means that it is not a coincidence that shortly after the remix of ROTD Steve Morse publishes his new cd. And this means that there are still connections between Steve and Deep Pruple, at least between Steve and Roger. 😉
September 11th, 2025 at 19:56Willkommen, Beate!
Karin, you ain’t alone anymore in this dark mancave! Well deserved – you really are your own man here…
Steve Morse -apart from being a great player – is a very nice guy for all we know. A friend of mine happened to be his driver at some occasions and had only the best to say about him. He told me Steve had his guitar on his lap and picked along to the car stereo as my buddy had some country music playing
September 11th, 2025 at 20:07Steve Morse epitomizes American decency, no two ways about it. If you don’t like him as a person, there must be something wrong with you.
“I bought all Dixie Dregs and SMB CDs I could get my hands on since I “fell in love” with Steve’s compositions and guitar-playing.”
(argwöhnisch nachfragend …)
And you’re sure you’re a real woman, liebste Beate, and not just identify as one? I mean all kinds of things can go wrong if one listens to too much Dixie Dregs and SMB. 😂
You probably like his T-shirts from the Florida Tankstelle bin “Native American Art + critters-prints – buy two, get one free while stocks last!” then too, right? 😎
I’m just joking
– insert emoticon for Karin here: 😆 -,
so you and Karin now make two female Steve Morse fans, well it’s a start …
September 11th, 2025 at 22:16And no comments about Beate’s perceived maturity this time, Max, learn from your mistakes!
https://media.tenor.com/XlC8OjBdAaMAAAAM/woody-allen-facepalm.gif
September 12th, 2025 at 00:24@18
So Max, what you are saying is that the testosterone levels are significantly lower ☺️
Well, all are willkommen to discuss all kinds of music and apparently non-music kinds of topics here.
You know me: besides Purple and Ian my main focus is coffee 😄
A long time ago you asked me to listen to a Whitesnake track: ain’t no love in the heart of the city (or at least I think it was you? Well sorry if I’m mixing people up here, nevertheless…) and I remember I was rather arrogant towards the former vocalist of Purple…. But he really is singing his heart out there, isn’t he?
September 12th, 2025 at 00:48But what really freaks me out is that I’m not listening for the difficult breathing anymore, and that was all I heard in the beginning…..WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING TO ME IN HERE?!
Ok, I mean thank you for broadening my horizons ☺️
So they planned to make a music video. Not surprised to see it turned out to be about Steve with his aviation experience
Wonder if Steve or Dixie ever made music video before? As we could see, the revival interest with Deep Purple after Bob Ezrin joined the gang was also helped by the music videos they made for Now What album. Vincent Price is a creative one, fresh and entertaining way to enjoy the great song. Clearly Steve wanted to use the same recipe.
As for the single, Dave la Rue is the MVP, his bass lines drive the song but Steve shows he can still rock on
September 12th, 2025 at 04:28@22: Of course they did. With planes in it, of course! 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aL_fnoZKp4
September 12th, 2025 at 06:41One of the great Steve Morse albums is The Introduction album. Excellent all round. It’s almost a Dregs album in many ways. That video clip is better not seen though. Cheers.
September 12th, 2025 at 08:34The line-up from the video with Jerry Peek is the one I saw in Rüsselsheim. And I swear there wasn’t a single woman in the audience. Maybe they weren’t invented yet back then.
September 12th, 2025 at 12:22Cheers to Steve Morse and SMB. Steve wrote A VERY BIG LOT of great songs on DP. I would not be sad if, at some point, DP decided to tour only playing Morse’s era songs. It would be amazing concerts and , still, many great songs would be out of the setlist due to time restrictions.
September 12th, 2025 at 14:17@26
Fernando, he did? I had no idea Steve was deep in the creative process.
September 12th, 2025 at 16:33Well I guess I always thought it was Ian G and Roger.
But what do I know 😊
Very nice!
Not sure Morse was the optimal fit for Purple. The amount of distortion he used was often excessive and obliterated Gillan’s aging voice at times. And his fusion-y shredding sometimes came across as overplaying.
He has “big ears” though, as the jazz cats say, a real team player, and with every successive tour he was able to blend more into the band’s overall sound.
From the footage that survives from Satriani’s brief tenure, Joe would likely have been a better – possibly much better – match in terms of both sound and riffing style.
No denying Steve’s chops though. Or his ability to come up with interesting melodies and improvise around them to his heart’s content.
Rocking instrumental tunes like this “Break Through” fit his style and sound like a glove, as does his virtuosic rhythm section. Really looking forward to the full album.
September 12th, 2025 at 20:11Glad to hear that, Karin!
Btw: have you ever heard of that boy from Tupelo? Great looks, even better voice… dances like a man possesed… Elvis something was his name I believe. Check him out!
September 12th, 2025 at 21:09@29
What!!!
Can I get the number of your cute doc? My head is buzzing, my eyes are burning and my ears are bleeding…..
I do prefer this guy over EP:
https://youtu.be/l056HAVFyb0?si=F_Wg7GbGclQLCvMI
I’m not sure about his dance moves though ☺️😉
September 12th, 2025 at 22:03@ 25 – “And I swear there wasn’t a single woman in the audience. Maybe they weren’t invented yet back then.” Not in your part of the world Uwe. Do you want some of ours? It is probably a bit late for all that now though, don’t you think. Cheers.
September 12th, 2025 at 22:14Until the advent of Don Airey, Steve was certainly the key songwriter and ideas provider in Mk VII. He’s a creative mind and always coming up with things. Not everything might have always worked with DP, but I have no doubt that Steve always had best intentions for the band and was much less a schemer than Ritchie. His years of service cannot be lauded enough.
Speaking of the man in black: If we’re honest with ourselves, his creative well as rock music goes dried up three decades ago at least.
September 12th, 2025 at 23:08@28
“Joe would likely have been a better – possibly much better – match in terms of both sound and riffing style.”
Much, much better IMO… But it was not possible the way things were with Joe’s “other” obligations.
We do, at the very least, owe Steve a debt of gratitude… after all he made it possible for the band to continue for almost another 30 years. And not everything he contributed comes off as over-played; just a few things.
There are a lot of great guitar slingers out there but most of them as good as they are would not be suited for Purple.
September 13th, 2025 at 07:21Cruise Control – what a cool song – First Dregs song I ever heard!
September 13th, 2025 at 18:07Bought that album right away .
Saw them around 78-9a- actually met Steve – super nice
Little did I know then he would join my favorite band & give me a chance to see purple many times .
Wish they could have toured Whoosh –
Thanks to Steve –
Long live Purple ! Here’s to the next album !
@32
Danke schön und vielen Dank Uwe!
I really didn’t know SM was in the creative process.
But of course, listening to songs like ‘Ted the mechanic’, I do believe I can hear the beautiful guitar solos are made by and for the guitarist himself.
“Speaking of the man in black: If we’re honest with ourselves, his creative well as rock music goes dried up three decades ago at least”
– ja natürlich! But he was a poet! And I guess his behaviour was beitragen that everyone was even more interested to see his latest ideas!
Arrhhh Uwe! Even ‘Last night at the Proms’ is synchronised 🫣
September 13th, 2025 at 20:05Who is afraid that the German people learn eine bißchen English?
You’re serious? Karin, Karin, Karin! No doc – not even the cutest one – could help here I’m afraid.
September 13th, 2025 at 21:20The german word for that is Gotteslästerung.
From what I have heard of Joe Satriani, a fine guitarist and all, I couldn’t see that. But we are guessing or pondering a fantasy of sorts, are we not?. Morse is far more diverse and melodic to my ears. That is what interested me with his music in the first place. I don’t hear that with many other guitar slingers, not to my liking at least. We all hear different things at times, it is what it is. Having said that, a lot of post Ritchie DP is boring to me, no doubt a similar scenario more than likely could have occurred with anyone else playing the guitar and contributing to the songwriting process. It is a different chemistry, we know that. Steve ain’t the ‘songwriter’ some perceive him to be, he is a co songwriter, he needs a vocalist and someone else to get it into a song form. Look back at his stint in Kansas if in doubt. The initial song ideas are usually from the vocalist in most bands, the vocal melodies and most of the time, the lyrics. Sometimes it is other band members contributing, as we see with Glover and a few others in other different bands. Even outside influences can get involved at times and some artists do covers of other songwriters, it happens. Satriani is another guitarist who would have to ‘gell’ with the singer etc. He is, like Morse, an instrumentalist. That is what he would be doing with Sammy Hagar no doubt. It would have been interesting to hear Satriani working with the DP guys, at least one album, just to see how it worked out. Cheers.
September 13th, 2025 at 23:04@36
Max! Blasphemy! 🤣🤣🤣
No you’re right. No doc with a medical degree can do much, I’m well aware of that.
September 13th, 2025 at 23:25But a brilliant homeopath, educated from the Swedish school can do a lot, and won’t even have to be cute to have an enormous impact 👩🏼⚕️
Blasphemy. Ecactly. To put that Onan Cheating guy above the King is unheard of. Is nothing really sacred anymore? Is that the results of succumbing to the Sweedish school of whatever? Heaven help us!
September 14th, 2025 at 14:05@39
You know what I think?
In secrecy you listen to Ronan Keating!
I believe you have posters of him at your bedroom walls, and I even think you have his autograph in a red leather book, placed under your pillow 😂😂
Well, now, let’s get back to what we really are here to do!
And btw, it is the Swedish school of homeopathy, and I promise you, should you ever be in dire straits, you would be so lucky to have me by your side! 😊
But my modesty forbid me to brag of my accomplishments ☺️
P.s. you mention ‘the King’, I wonder, is it King Charles of UK, King Frederik of Denmark, King Harald of Norway or should it be King Gustav of Sweden you’re thinking of?
September 14th, 2025 at 20:11@37 MacGregor – of course we are only guessing or speculating about how Satriani might have fitted in over the long term. Since it didn’t happen. Not even one studio record, as you point out.
The band was lucky to get Morse, by all accounts a very nice guy, and someone who reinvigorated them after their tepid later Blackmore years.
There is evidence that Satch was highly compatible with DP, footage of them on the tour they did together. He hit the ground running, blending in with their sound sound-wise and playing-wise – reining in his shredding, doing just enough to spice things up and show that he could.
Contrarily, Morse seemed like a square peg in a round hole at first. At least for parts of “Purpendicular” and the initial tours. “The Aviator” and “Castle Full Of Rascals”, for example, sound kind of un-Purple to me to this day. Compared both to the preceding RB era or what SM himself later played on “Abandon” and “Bananas”.
If we REALLY wanted to speculate… What would it have been like had the band picked Blackmore acolyte Ray Flacke as his replacement?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPFa-farmE0&list=RDFPFa-farmE0&start_radio=1
And what kind of wig would they have made him wear?
September 15th, 2025 at 02:37@ 41- yes Skippy I watched the Satriani with Purple live footage a few times. He certainly is a more rock styled guitarist than Morse. So he hit the ground running there and the fact that he knew he was only filling in would have helped him to just go with the flow and enjoy himself. Would he have joined DP even if he really wanted to? If so, how long would he have enjoyed playing the MKII material. Same as Steve, how he put up with all that for so long makes me wonder. They are both very determined composers of their own material, so to play covers for decades, a form of discipline is required. Plus all the incessant touring, that would have got to many guitarists I would think. Was Steve too diverse for Purple? I have always thought that from day one. He is a bit like Steve Howe from Yes, they both play a variety of styles and are not really ‘rock’ guitarists in that sense. Listen to The Dregs, not a lot of hard rock there. Those two guitarists have a much broader palette to paint from. Good for Morse to get that gig as Satriani was much more out there and more popular, so for Steve to get that ‘break’, it was great for him. Cheers.
September 15th, 2025 at 11:01For me , the new music on Purpendicular was a breath of fresh air, I loved tracks like The Aviator, Loosen My Strings, A Touch Away and A Castle Full Of Rascals – not to mention the very IGB reminiscent Rosa’s Cantina! – and I loved even more how many Purpendicular songs they played on the ensuing tour.
If truth be told, Ritchie’s songwriting style had become a bit samey and dated during the reunion and he was finding it harder and harder to come up with the killer riffs of yore (probably because he had written them all already!), Ritchie himself by his own volition declared at one point that he was pretty much done with rock music and Doogie White era Rainbow failed to reignite the spark for him. Ritchie stopped playing rock music because he felt he had nothing left to say in that genre, just like Miles Davis would at some point abandon Cool Jazz or Bob Dylan Pete Seeger type folk music.
Steve was a legitimate huge part of Purple for a long time. His qualities far outweighed his perceived drawbacks (T-shirt taste etc) any musician will have, I fail to see why his joining of DP for almost 30 years could retroactively be (re)labeled as a mistake.
That doesn’t make me welcome Simon McBride any less or lose sight of the fact that Steve’s enthusiasm for DP had somewhat waned towards the end (though I would have really liked to see Whoosh! toured more extensively). When I saw him last (with Flying Colors) in Cologne
https://youtu.be/sDm1ESUbmaY
https://youtu.be/Vz7JLFmE_XE
in December 2019 I remember riding back from the gig with my motorbike thinking that I hadn’t seen Steve having even nearly as much fun and being that inspired on stage in more than a decade.
Incidentally, in this forum full of supposed Steve Morse diehards, it baffles me that anything about Flying Colors is always met with mild disinterest at best. Conceptually that band with its idiosyncratic mix of prog rock, pop and indie is as remarkable as IGB was.
I guess I’m eclectic and most people aren’t! 😂
September 15th, 2025 at 16:08It is all about the songs Uwe. Flying Colours, (sorry, English spelling), are boring, pretty easy to hear. The vocal and songs and the ‘melodies’ have been done to death by so many before. It isn’t anything new. Not to mention that compositional arrangement style. Just because a band of high quality musicians gets together, doesn’t necessarily mean good to outstanding compositions will eventuate. We have noticed that time and time again with certain artists over the decades. What is that saying in sport. ‘A champion team will always beat a team of champions”. Something along those lines. Steve Morse enjoys himself immensely because there isn’t any ‘pressure’ if you know what I mean. Plus there are not any die hard aficionados like here at THS, ready to drag out the guillotine. Nobody notices anything so all is good for Steve and company in FC. I would not compare them to the IGB at all. Totally different scenario in so many ways. The 1970’s and music was still being created from a rather adventurous and full pool. These days it is a very empty and dry pool indeed. Cheers.
September 15th, 2025 at 22:14Do you by any chance have issues with Neal Morse, Herr MacGregor? I’m surprised that anyone would call FC’s music boring, it is carefully crafted, melodic and – important for me – not as instrumentally show-offy and lacking warmth as, say, Dream Theater.
Is that the common sentiment here that Flying Colors are crap? I’m surprised as I saw them live twice and their performances were infectious.
https://youtu.be/kSNWMHEtNQg
I think their music is cerebral without pushing the aspect to death plus Steve was a really good fit.
But admittedly: I liked Transatlantic too.
September 16th, 2025 at 17:45@45 Uwe and others:
September 20th, 2025 at 08:12As soon as I „discovered“ Steve playing with DP, I was looking for every band we was/is in. And naturally I have all the albums he made with Flying Colors.
I‘m not only a fan of hard rock but also of prog. And FC are much nearer to prog than to rock. I think when Steve was in DP he was glad to have some other projects outside DP. You can hear he enjoyed his freedom with FC – and not to have a producer that told him to save his very special solos for his solo-projects was surely a kind of release.
Uwe, them colours didn’t take off for me…let alone fly. Not bad at all of course, super pros …but the music doesn’t move me. Doesn’t make me smile or cry or dance or raise my fist and yell. And it’s not even comforting.
September 20th, 2025 at 14:14It‘s American Prog of course, but not at all bad for that. If you can stand Kansas, then I guess FC is an easy diet for you. And the Emo/Indie Rock vocals gave it a different slant.
September 20th, 2025 at 19:54I’ve been following Steve’s career since the mid-80s, when he was voted best guitarist five times in a row. I first saw him live with his band in Baden-Baden in 1990, and I’ve been a fan of Dave LaRue (an incredible bassist) and Van Romaine ever since. I’ve seen Flying Colors live on all three tours (2012 in Stuttgart, 2014 in Frankfurt, and 2019 in Cologne), and I was always impressed by FC’s live qualities, especially how liberated and happy Steve played. With Purple, I always had the impression that he was forced into a role he had to fulfill (80-90% cover songs). FC was always more refreshing for me than Purple’s predictable set lists. I can only speak for myself here, but I wouldn’t want to hear Smoke, Hush, and many others live for the thousandth time. As for FC, I’d be happy if they got back together (which, unfortunately, seems unlikely given Mike Portnoy’s return to Dream Theater). But who knows?
September 22nd, 2025 at 08:17Steve was more inspired with FC, no doubt. He was only as vibrant with Purple around the Purpendicular tour.
September 24th, 2025 at 05:56I found this only now, great performance and recording quality (song titles are wrong though), I was actually at that gig that night in Hanau in 1996 and Mk VII absolutely cooked. Best Steve Morse gig with Purple ever for me …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11ByGr01whg
September 25th, 2025 at 01:40