Artist: Mind's Eye  
   Title: A Gentleman's Hurricane
   Label: Lion Music

Following up a successful album with another masterpiece has to be one of the biggest undertakings any band can come up against and many succeed, but equally many fail to come up with the goods, however this isn’t the case with ‘A Gentleman’s Hurricane’ the follow up to ‘Walking On H2O’ by progressive giants Mind's Eye.

With this new album the band have really gone the whole hog with the whole concept thing as the album comes as a triple pack release (a world first in fact!) complete with a graphic novel which tells the storyline behind the album, plus a DVD documenting the whole making of the album, allowing the fans to really get inside the whole concept behind the album and how the band worked together in the studio. 

The album itself tells the tale of 53 year old assassin Adam Evangelista who suddenly begins to feel overcome with guilt about his life and seeks refuge in a church, where he meets retired priest Father Di Mori to whom he tells of his work during confessions.  With only seven days to pour out his heart before his very last job, 'Twelve Murders in Seven Days', so much to tell, so little time to tell it.  And so the story unfolds in this the bands most ambitious project to date.

The album gets underway with ‘Praying For Confession’ and sets the scene and mood for the rest of the album with its narrative mixed with orchestral and choral parts, then the vocals of Andreas Novak take of the piece with their Phil Collins/ Chris Cornell crossover vocal style and with the wonderful bass and guitar work of Johan Niemann all wrapped in the keys and drums of Daniel Flores, the trio have delivered an opener to equal ‘I Remember Now’ from Queensryche's 'Operation Mindcrime'.

The albums bursts into ‘Seven Days’ with Novak leading the way as the thunderous rhythms of Niemann and Flores lay down the atmospherics that every great concept album cries out for, huge bass lines mixed with a rampant drum beat backing the flowing guitars and soaring vocals.

Things continue along this dark progressive path as one track melts seamlessly into another with ‘AssassiNation’, another powerful and thought provoking assault on the senses, with the monstrous heavy bass lines once again dominating things as Novak shows what a powerful addition he has become to the whole Minds Eye sound.

The album is probably the heaviest thing the band have done to date while still retaining that Mind's Eyes sound that was made so prominent on 'Walking On H2O', with a few added spins on the progressive theme along the way.

The album begins to grow into a progressive monster with ‘Chaos Unleashed’, the track ebbs and flows between the heavier vibe and the more traditional progressive feel with Flores keyboards just ripping through every pore along with the flurry of solos by Neimann, this is the band at their most grandiose.

You're hardly given a chance to catch your breath between tracks as things continue with the thumping ‘Hells Invitation’, which again cements the heavier feel of the album with the drums of Flores being the dominant feature of the track and this is carried on into the brain splitting force of the excellent ‘Feed My Revolver’.

The full on assault never ceases as the album continues its harder edge with ‘Ashes To Ashes (in land lullaby)’, this is where the band take their sound to a whole new level, with Novak’s vocals coming across like Fish from Marillion on this one, but at the same time bringing in a little Peter Gabriel on this multi layered masterpiece.

‘The Hour Of Need’ slows the pace down as Novak is joined by Crucified Barbara’s Mia Coldheart for this dark duet with only keyboards for company.  The more sedate feel is continued on into ‘Red Winter Sirens’ before the track bursts into life with the now familiar thumping drums and bass, with the guitars not far behind these, all leading the way for Novak who once again lays down one of his finest vocal performance's so far.

The album just grows in splendour as each track unfolds and one of my favourite tracks on the album has to be ‘Skin Crawl’ with its varying tempos and soaring guitar work, added to that powerful dominating drum beat, this one just oozes class. One of the surprise elements of the album has to be the almost folkish tones of ‘Graveyard Hands’ with its inclusion of flute and mandolin sound bites which turn this into a very medieval feeling track.

Things are once again brought back up to speed with ‘Say Goodnight’, a track which epitomizes the whole Mind's Eye sound as it twists from the more traditional progressive sound to the more experimental and then on to the heavier feel, all this before the album closer ‘Pandora’s Musical Box’, another monster of a track that rounds off a quite remarkable album and one that will put the name Mind's Eye on the lips of every fan of the whole Concept Album and Progressive Metal fans alike.

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