PROVIDENCE

This 18th Mutiny in Jonestown studio album takes us back to the world of HP Lovecraft. First up though, is the nearly 8 minute song, "Brumeaux Mon Couer". The only French lyric song the band ever recorded. What is it about? Good question! Fact is, I didn't write down the lyrics and my French comprehension is so poor I can't figure out what I'm singing. I guess it will remain a mystery, but I definitely like it especially the lead guitar parts.

Next up is the showcase piece of the album, if not Mutiny in Jonestown's best extended piece, one of Lovecraft's most well known short stories, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". On the CD release, it's a single 34:59 minute song, but BandCamp isn't able to handle songs of that length (talk about being not prog friendly!) so it was broken up into 2 halves. The lyrics follow the original story closely and the musical accompaniment is varied, at times guitar driven heavy prog and others mellotron drenched?but make no mistake, telling the story is the highest priority of the piece. As the main character visits Innsmouth on a sight-seeing and architectural vacation, he discovers something very wrong. The streets are mostly deserted and the people he does see appear less than human. An interesting musical break at around the 10 minute mark of part 1 always reminds me of "It" from "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". It wasn't written that way, it just sort of happened.

Part 2 continues to tell the story as the main character meets an old man who's seen the history of the city and it's descent into decadence. He (Zadok) tells his story and the main character realizes Innsmouth is not a place to be after dark. Events finally lead to the realization that the man must flee the city before the creatures destroy him. The final lyrical section where the main character flees only later to come to the realization that he is becoming one of the Innsmouth creatures himself is one of the best Mutiny in Jonestown musical sections. The final guitar solo is possible the best the band ever recorded.

Rating this album is very difficult as I'm stuck between a 4 or 5 star review...a 4 1/2 stars would get me out of my dilemma, but that's not an option. I think the album is great, but it does have a wart or two so it's not perfect. If you look at my previous reviews for this band you can see I have given the band 2 star reviews 12 out of their first 17 albums so I'm trying to be very objective and critical. After listening to the whole album and both Innsmouth parts 1 and 2 a couple of additional times, I concluded that while it's not absolutely perfect, this album has everything I look for in a masterpiece of prog which is the definition of a 5 star album, so I believe the correct rating is to give the band their first 5 star review.