Artist: Mind's Eye Album: A Gentleman's Hurricane Label: Lion Music Website: http://www.myspace.com/eyeofthemind/ Reviewer: Paulo André

Tracklisting: 01. Praying For Confession 02. Seven Days 03. AssassiNation 04. Chaos Unleashed 05. Hell's Invitation 06. Feed My Revolver 07. Ashes To Ashes (In Land Lullaby) 08. The Hour Of Need 09. Red Winter Sirens 10. Skin Crawl 11. Graveyard Hands 12. Say Goodnight 13. Pandora's Musical Box I think it's quite incredible how Sweden keeps churning out quality metal onto an unsuspecting musical landscape. Mind's Eye are a strong example of this, hailing from Stockholm and already leaving an impressive trail of quality albums behind their newest release "A Gentleman's Hurricane". Being a concept album dealing with themes of murder, tragedy and inner turmoil, it's pretty much inevitable to draw comparisons to giants in the field like Queensr˙che's "Operation: Mindcrime", Dream Theater's "Scenes From a Memory" or even Evergrey's fantastic "The Inner Circle". But that shouldn't be reason enough to dismiss this right from the get go, now should it? Because "A Gentleman's Hurricane" is not only the band's most accomplished and balanced work to date, it's also a landmark in terms of production and sonic quality. I'd rather not give the actual storyline away, so suffice to say that these 13 songs tell the tale of a serial killer who sets out to murder 12 of the most important people of our time. How the band focuses on his inner struggle rather that on his actual deeds is one of the reasons why the album works. The other reason is mostly musical, because seldom have I heard a power trio sounding this cohesive, dynamic and, truth be told... so damn good. Inevitably, for obvious reasons, "A Gentleman's Hurricane" should be savored in one fell swoop from start to finish - despite its 75 minute length - as one song seamlessly flows into another. Essentially sporting an impeccable sense of melody, the mood is all over the place as it should, as vocalist Andreas Novak delivers an absolutely stellar vocal performance with lots of heart warming harmonies, dripping emotion without getting cheesy and guitarist Johan Niemann handling all guitar duties - including bass - in a secure, intelligent, emotive way. There's not an out-of-place guitar solo, melodies are infectious, rhythm is crisp and clear and everything is very - but not overly - cinematic. And all this topped - or is that backed? - by pounding drums and a huge keyboard foundation, as Daniel Flores not only handles creative duties, he's also an incredible drummer and keyboardist. I left a lot of particulars out of this review on purpose, as I feel the surprises should be left untouched for the first time listener. The others already know what I'm talking about. As a parting shot, though, the icing on top of this cake, is how this comes packaged as a CD + Making Of + Comic Book illustrating the storyline triple pack. With music highly likely to appeal to every prog listener with an inclination for the hard and heavy plus all these extras, what's not to like? I wonder how they plan to top this one, though. Good luck with that. Band: Andreas Novak: Vocals Johan Niemann: Guitars / Bass Daniel Flores : Drums / Keyboards / Vocals