Mentalist – A Journey Into The Unknown
Label: Pride & Joy Music / Soulfood
Release date: 20th August, 2021
Website: www.facebook.com/mentalistband
“A Journey Into The Unknown“ is the second album of the German band. Finest melodic metal in the vein of HELLOWEEN, SERIOUS BLACK or BLIND GUARDIAN. Here it comes full circle as Thomen Stauch sits behind the drums. Fast, epic and mid tempo songs can be found well-balanced and the production is absolutely top-notch. A huge development if we take the first (good) album into account. Check out e.g. “Modern Philosophy“ as first impression! The magificient „Soldier Without A War“ will give you goosebumps and the energetic “Evil Eye“ is probably one of the best HELLOWEEN sounding songs not by themselves. The title track, though, offers a great GAMMY RAY feeling and melody line. The record is closed by a surprising cover. “Manchild“ by NENEH CHERRY is cool somehow, both in the original and here. It actually made me dig out the original record from my archives, probably the only “rap“ album I own… A beautiful artwork by the legendary Andreas Marschall (e.g. HAMMERFALL, BLIND GUARDIAN) completes the picture here. You really can’t do it much better than this. Melodic Metal as it should sound like in 2021, lots of references to the obvious masters but also their very own distinct style as far as the ear can hear. The future looks bright for MENTALIST!
9,5/10
Martin Stark
Tracklist:
01. Horizon (1:12)
02. A Journey Into the Unknown (5:50)
03. Modern Philosophy (5:59)
04. Evil Eye (6:03)
05. An Ocean So Deep (4:36)
06. Dentalist (4:13)
07. Soldier Without a War (6:53)
08. Torture King (5:58)
09. Battle Dressed (7:03)
10. Live Forever (8:28)
11. Manchild (Bonus) (4:14)
