As I’ve typed for the benefit of visitors to this site before, if you are only interested in the most “brootal” of screamed metal vomited into a microphone by somebody with a face painted like a badger, click away right now. If, however, you are willing to indulge in the “atmospheric” part of Ave Noctum’s mission statement, then please do read on.
In the current ever changing and unsure world where Andy Warhol’s famous and oft misquoted “fifteen minutes of fame” is becoming more prophecy than throwaway comment, Mushroom Giant are a genuine veteran of the Prog scene, with ‘Painted Mantra’ not being a new album, rather a re-release from 2014. It’s not that they’ve stood still, having released recordings since, but having taken the time to discover them, without a doubt this is their fullest and most fulfilling release to date.
An unashamedly proud pure Prog album, no “prog-metal”, no “prog-rock”, and fully deserving of the capital “P” in “Prog”, Mushroom Giant’s ‘Painted Mantra’ eschews vocals to allow the instrumental talents of the band shine. Opener ‘Event Loop’ is composed of four musicians who are clearly technical masters of their chosen instruments, and happy to display their skills without false modesty. Frankly, the opening five and a half minute number is every bit as much a statement of intent as a demonstration of their abilities, with ever ebbing and flowing musical nuances, a mission statement furthered in the harder riffs of ‘Primaudial (get it?) Soup’, a track that flows gently into the altogether more trippy and mellow ‘Triptych’, a number succeeded by the frankly obscenely short sub three and a half minute gentle reflection that is ‘Lunar Entanglement.’
‘Aesong’ follows with an opening keyboard vamp that promises an introduction to a host of ‘Perfect Strangers’ before it diverts into the astral travels of a classic Steve Hackett number. If this reference to a titan of the Prog scene is not sufficient to tempt you into a well-deserved purchase, let me tell you of the centrepiece of the album, the epic ‘Scars of the Interior’. Practically deserving of a stand-alone review, this offering travels the whole gamut of Prog: short guitar/bass/drum stabs develop into dreamy meandering solos that invite the listener to lie back and drift away, lulled into a trance by the most delicate of strummings before being alternatively shaken awake and then cradled to sleep by the rising and falling tide of music.
The nine tracks of ‘Painted Mantra’ fill an entire hour, with none in any way feeling self-indulgent or outstaying their welcome; ‘The Drake Equation’ continues a journey through inner space; ‘Four Hundred and Falling’ is so laid back it is practically horizontal, and CD closer ‘Majestic Blackness’ displays a minimalistic melancholy. In a world where popular music is composed of ever shorter and ever more instantly interchangeable and disposable songs littered with ever more monosyllabic lyrics, the fact that Mushroom Giant convey their message through purely instrumental tracks that both deserve, and indeed demand, concentration, is only to be applauded. I can only hope that this reissue of an album now seven years old, an age that is a massive multiple of the average continuity of many bands, is a prelude to more new music.
(7.5/10 Spenny)
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