FOR THOSE WHO STAND ALONE

The 20th Mutiny in Jonestown studio album seeks to tell the story of an innocent unjustly accused of witchcraft and her experience from accusation to execution. This album is newly available on BandCamp as I've had several requests to add it. Meanwhile, the track, "The Confession" is also on the compilation album, "Anthology III 2003 ? 2014".

The album cover is one of my favorite paintings, "The Magic Circle" by John Waterhouse. I think it's one of the best marriages of album cover art to music in the entire Mutiny in Jonestown discography.

The story is made up of 4 songs varying in length from about 6 minutes to a couple which are over 10 minutes. The music here is very heavy guitar oriented, that coupled with the dark lyrical subject matter would likely make the album considered heavy prog rather than the neo prog label the band is associated with.

The songs follow her through her ordeal beginning with, "The Accusation" through "The Arrest" to "The Confession" and finally "The Execution". The musical backing for this linear story attempts to convey the moods and events the lyrics describe. There are many sections with lead synthesizer and guitar solos and sections where the bass and drums take the lead. Mellotron also holds up the background sound washes of many songs. The vocals are highly processed to better portray the situations and voice of the accused.

This is likely the darkest subject matter the band has used to create a concept album. To give an idea, some lyrics from, "The Confession" might be a good illustration: "When put to the press I surrendered a name I knew to be false but I lied just the same?and as a reward for my desperate words, they promise to strangle me before I burn". As such, it has a different feel than most Mutiny in Jonestown albums which I find a good change of pace. While I wouldn't consider this a 5 star 'masterpiece of prog', I think the unique choice of concept and performance makes this a 4 star rating.