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A Gentleman's Hurricane
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The best thing about writing reviews is that you discover wonderful bands every year, bands you'd never discover yourself. Bands who are far above mediocrity and really add something to the musical spectrum. Mind's Eye is such a band. I've never heard of them, but the first impression, the album "A Gentleman's Hurricane", is overwhelming.
Mind's Eye is a progressive rock band from Sweden and "A Gentleman's Hurricane" is already their fifth album. It's become a concept album about an assassin who works for the Illuminati, but he's getting more and more troubled by his conscience and finally decides to confess his sins to a retired priest. Both men appear to have deep, dark secrets. The assassin only has one last task to fulfill...
To support the concept, "A Gentleman's Hurricane" comes with a DVD and a comic book, but I can't say anything about that, because I've only received the CD.
Fortunately, the CD is more than worth listening to on it's own. Mind's Eye has a very harmonic sound, clearly based on old progressive rock bands like Yes, Genesis and Rush, but heavier and far from old-fashioned. The album starts with a light atmosphere, despite of the lyrics, and songs like "AssassiNation" and "Feed my Revolver" are even extremely catchy. As the story continues, the atmosphere becomes darker and more threatening, working towards a grim climax. It's really impressive how the band manages to enforce the story this way.
The musical craftsmanship of the three gentleman of Mind's Eye is beyond discussion anyway and singer Andreas Novak has a great voice, which sometimes even reminds me a little bit of Phil Collins. The guest contributions of Mia Coldheart (excellent female vocals on "The Hour of Need") and Rolf Pilotti (flute in the folky "Graveyard Hands") are impressive too and add even more depth to the music. "A Gentleman's Hurricane" has simply become a little masterpiece and is a compulsory investment for everyone who is into progressive rock/metal.
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