RETURN OF THE NOWHERE MAN

This is the thirteenth Mutiny in Jonestown studio album and likely the longest clocking in at over 74 minutes. It's also the last album the band released before the millennium. It's quite far ranging in sense of style and topic, moving from prog, through darkwave, instrumental, Tangerine Dream like synth pieces, a pair of Lovecraft adaptations, dark poetry set to music, a nearly 13 minute adaptation of the HP Lovecraft story, "The Picture in the House" to music, an unusual recitation of Lovecraft's short prose story, "Nyarlothetep" set to a dark musical background, and finally ending with a hard rocking cover of The Beatles 'Nowhere Man' (hence the title, "Return of the Nowhere Man").

Only one song from the album found it's way to one of the band's compilation albums. 'Pull the Plug', which is available on the compilation, 'Anthology II 1993 - 2002' on BandCamp. The song begins as a dark and brooding musical accompaniment to a disturbing voice questioning the role of television and what it's doing to his mind and daily life. At the end, he questions his role as a passive observer of the box and his wavering resolve to escape its influence by wondering, 'If I could I'd pull the plug'. I find the other songs (vocal and instrumental) to be very interesting and a departure of what one would expect from a Mutiny in Jonestown album. Maybe it was the upcoming millennium, or the fact that it was the 13th studio album, but something unusual was in the air when this album was written and recorded.

While the stylistic variations from the usual Mutiny in Jonestown sound makes this album unique in the discography, and therefore questionable about it's ability to bring new fans to the band, it remains a solid if not quite adventurous album that could appeal to a wide variety of prog fans...or prog fans looking for an unusual out of the box sound. For that reason, I'm rating this one a 3 star release.