mentalEscape – Wordless

mentalEscape – Wordless – Album Review

There we go…you get that hit of cross-cultural sound right off the bat when you’re listening to mentalEscape’s new album Wordless, which from what I’ve read about it, was very much intentional.  With years of trying to find ways to bring sounds from “back home” into his work, the modern-day market of musicianship has certainly opened up so much that it allows for the opportunity to work with some remarkable studio aces all across the map.  While I never know who does what on practically any given record, I can definitely confirm that from the description of what mentalEscape was aiming for with Wordless, “Stone Bridge” starts fulfilling the goals immediately.  Killer guitar riffs and melody fuel this opening track.  The crunch and intensity was solidly entertaining to begin with, but hearing this track burst right open just prior to the third minute of run-time and the solo that followed…that was the chef’s kiss y’all.  Great start to this album – “Stone Bridge” will have no problem earning your attention.

OKAY!  Now we’ve got ourselves a ballgame!  Don’t get it twisted, I was already wildly interested by what I’d heard on “Stone Bridge” – but then “Eurasian Wolf” came on and my jaw dropped straight onto the floor.  I’m more than positive mentalEscape would have the correct genre and seven subgenres a song like this would likely be a part of…but I’m in the camp of call it whatever the fuck you want, just LISTEN and RECOGNIZE THE AWESOMENESS.  No joke folk, this song is astounding, purely, on every damn level you can think of.  The insane degree of skill it would take in the musicianship and the composition alone will blow your mind…the execution on “Eurasian Wolf” is second to none, and the creative innovation taking place pretty much leaves me speechless.  Like, I really don’t know what to say except for that “Eurasian Wolf” isn’t just a good song on Wordless…it’s not just a great song to add to mentalEscape’s catalog…this is literally one of the best songs I’ve ever fucking heard in my WHOLE LIFE.  Do you get it now?  This dude had me onboard from the moment this song started…the beginning of this track is pure textural brilliance…and I’m tellin’ ya, I think for a second or two at least, I was convinced it couldn’t get any better than that.  Then you get the wild guitar notes around the 1:25 mark…and about twenty seconds later down the road the tension builds even more…and in another twenty seconds, you are already in the eye of the hurricane, surrounded by a glorious combination of digitalized metal mayhem that you will never want to escape from.  The breakdown before the third minute is eerie AF and menacing, hinting and threatening that riotous comeback you KNOW has to be coming, and by the 3:30 mark…good lord man…if this were played live, the crowd world spontaneously combust in the moshpit in front of the stage.  From the concept to the outstanding production & recording techniques applied to this track…yeah…I’m willing to say this is probably the best track I’ve ever heard from mentalEscape to-date, which is saying a hell of a lot considering how much I tend to love this dude’s music.

He’s also been reviewed by me plenty of times before as well, as far back as 2018 in fact, for a record called Drama back in the day.  The dude that made that record was good…no doubt about it…but that dude likely could not have made the record I’m listening to now in Wordless – this is audible growth.  Not that we haven’t had many other encounters with mentalEscape along the way that have proven that evolution happening continually as this project progressed, but you get what I mean.  Seven years is a long time, and I can only imagine every one of us would want some proof of us moving the needle artistically.  Well, as “Bellum Batonianum” started cranking up the heat and generating interest at light speed…I felt like we all got that hit of sonic confirmation that tells our ears mentalEscape is at the top of his game right now.  I know for myself personally, like I said, this ain’t my first rodeo – and mentalEscape knows full well that after what might be your best song, if things drop significantly, I’m probably gonna have something to say about it.  What makes a track like “Bellum Batonianum” so amazing is how utterly competitive it is!  I was ready to call it a day when “Eurasian Wolf” came on, thinking there was no way that mentalEscape could outdo that track…and although at this point on the record I’d still tell you I believe that, hearing “Bellum Batonianum” come out swinging for the fence was all I wanted to hear.  Because none of us can simply expect that what we hear on a record is going to one-up itself track after track all the way from beginning to end – the nature of dynamics and personal taste would never allow for that!  So all I wanna hear is that an artist or band didn’t just fucking surrender and lay down and die after what might perceivably be their best song…you still wanna hear that fight in the artist on display, and “Bellum Batonianum” highlights the fact that mentalEscape has truly taken the nuclear option with this record, intending to overwhelm our collective senses with a barrage of audible awesomeness.  I’m in.  This is seriously hot stuff, and the skill it would take to put this together is the stuff of legends y’all.

I think a lot of folks would be amazed by how digitally-based something like mentalEscape can be, but how comparable a record like this would be to say, something intricately organic like you’d hear in Tool.  Like, as “Codex 1404” started up its engine, all I could think to myself was, “how could someone not be entertained by an album like this?”  I’m not saying that like I have some kind of definitive proof that these people exist out there somewhere…I’m just musing out loud…and yeah, I’d be the first to tell you that seems like a grand impossibility if I’ve ever heard one – who could resist these kickass heavy jams?  mentalEscape has always defied description through its hybrid compositions and ever-morphing music, but you’re in for an unpredictable treat as a result of that.  A track like “Codex 1404” has serious beef to it, like you’d hear in a Metal track…Progressive tendencies in the composition/structure…Alternative teeth to its gripping sound…Industrial strength…and of course, its ever-present digital venom as well.  Think of “Codex 1404” like one man’s response to what you’d hear on “Jambi” by Tool and you’ll have a semblance of an idea of what you’re in-store for, but as per what you might expect, the many twists and turns that mentalEscape applies will still make it significantly different.  Guess I’m talkin’ mainly about the chops you hear and the depth of sound/complexity you hear combined…but I’d imagine those of you out there familiar with the song will understand exactly what I’m getting at cause there ain’t all that many songs out there with comparable vibes.  “Codex 1404” continues the hot streak mentalEscape has been on with this record so far – Wordless has been on fire from the very moment that it all started.

“Vipera Bosniensis” MIGHT be the first spot where you’ll feel the momentum subside just a little bit, if only just a few degrees towards a mellower direction.  In all honesty, a record like Wordless has so much in common with the stuff you’d hear from the guitar icons like Vai or Satriani…they’ve both famously taken deep dives into cross-cultural sound throughout their catalogs as well, but also maintained that gripping virtuoso craft no matter what they chose to do creatively.  As I listened to “Vipera Bosniensis” I felt like I was listening to a solid idea with exceptional execution that was built on real substance.  Like, this kind of track tells a story, you know what I mean?  It might not be the most exciting thing you’ll hear on an album like this compared to the heights of the highlights surrounding it, but I do think there’s really something to be said for the value of engaging, interesting entertainment as well – make sense?  So…sure…there’s probably going to be many cuts you might be inclined to repeat more often, but I think a track like “Vipera Bosniensis” is one of those tracks you’ll always appreciate & give your full attention to whenever it comes back on.  What’s the technical term for something like that…a grower, not a shower?  Again, you’ll get what I mean when you hear it for yourself…it’s an immensely satisfying experience to listen to something like this, but definitely supplies a different dimension to the set-list.

“Mahallah” was the track I felt myself resisting a little bit more than the rest of what I’d heard so far.  While there’s no possibly way I’d ever tell you this is any kind of a bad tune, it did feel like it took a minute or two to get going for me, or perhaps stuck to its main guitar hook a bit too long for my liking.  What I really do love about a track like “Mahallah” is how like…right at the center of so many different cultures a sound like this truly is.  You can find examples of this kind of pattern in just about every one of’em if I’m being real with you, and it’s one of those kinds of sounds we all assume is unique to our own places of origin before we realize how widespread it actually is.  Like, for myself, I instantly made a Celtic connection to the heart of the melody in “Mahallah” – but I’m more than well aware of the fact that a ton of listeners would likely assume something like this comes from Russia, or middle-eastern countries.  And you know something?  We’d all be right.  That’s what I’m saying – you can find examples of this type of melody throughout the history of music in different regions all over the world…and there’s really something beautiful about that.  It’s not like any of us, mentalEscape included, specifically look for something familiar out there and want to simply present it in a new shiny box – no…you reinvent and build upon the past, like all artists do – but it’s still fascinating to hear how common compositional aspects can naturally occur in different artists spread out all over the globe.  We’re all so undeniably unique, but we’re all still drawn to the same things in music in so many ways, so it’s actually quite natural to find many crossover elements between different styles and cultures and such.  For myself, when examining an artist like mentalEscape that is capable of such extraordinary creativity like you hear on “Eurasian Wolf,” I’m always going to want to hear the guy in that mode where he’s pushing the boundaries of what we think we know about music in completely new directions – that’s exciting to me – but I fully understand that even in the pursuit of doing something new, we’ll bump into something old.

Much time has been spent with the guitar on this record…it’s pronounced and emphasized in a way that I don’t think I can recall any mentalEscape album having ever been like, and again, it gets to the point where something like Wordless would have much more in common with a record outta the virtuoso’s catalogs like Vai or Johnson or Satriani etc., than anything you’d find within the traditional confines of the digital realm.  What’s amazing is how seamless the infusion is, and how expertly it’s all combined.  Like, I couldn’t tell you how much of a track like “Prokleta” is analog versus digital…I’m simply not that observant, and mentalEscape is that damn good that he can drift from one side of that spectrum to the other and you’d probably never even know.  I might be in the camp of thinking that “Prokleta” took a bit of time to get going and find its way into its most engaging moments, but I’m more than happy to report it all got to where it needed to go.  It’s another very vivid, storytelling type of instrumental…think along the lines of “Vipera Bosniensis,” but armed with more intensity and a stronger melodic grip in its hooks.  Is it my favorite on the record?  No, it’s not – but I do maintain there’s real value to tracks like these when it comes to the enduring longevity of a record like this.  We’ll all be relentlessly turning up tracks like “Eurasian Wolf,” “Bellum Batonianum” and “Codex 1404” at first, but over the course of time, it’ll be tracks like “Stone Bridge,” “Vipera Bosniensis,” and “Prokleta” that keep us coming back to appreciate the colorful dose of cross-cultural sound that mentalEscape made a priority for the sound of this album.

The build on “Sanctuary” is so impressive that I had to really question whether or not the rest to follow lived up to the expectations it generates so quickly.  And you know something?  I’m not sure that I ever came to a conclusion on that.  In a weird way, it almost felt like the detonation of the explosive intensity we expect to hear came a bit later than it felt like it was supposed to…not a timing issue per say, but more like a couple of seconds of missed opportunity to place that next step where we expected to find it.  No harm no foul I figure, because it does eventually come along, and “Sanctuary” makes its shift into that amped-up, exciting energy you’re hoping for.  Personally, I felt the most partial towards the finale of this particular track…like…right around the four minute mark, mentalEscape just goes off into this powerful cycle of repetition, but in exactly the right way to do it.  Like, if you were waiting for everything to come together to really highlight the climax, that’s what that moment is…you hit that spot around the four minute mark, and you coast along with the song having achieved exactly what it set out to do from the very beginning.  All-in-all, I felt like “Sanctuary” was on completely solid ground from about the 1:20 mark on forward, and that the way it morphs its sound to what we eventually hear in the finale was a masterclass in focus and fluidity.  It’s set up well in the sense that you hear a bit of what’s to come earlier on around the 2:30 mark, but to me, it made the biggest impact when you get past the breakdown and mentalEscape just let’er rip right to the finish line on the strength of repetition.  When you find the right part in a song y’all…ride along with it…your listeners will never be disappointed.  This is a highly universal vibe that mentalEscape is rocking with on “Sanctuary” all said and done – I dig it.

And then, what’s this?  Are we about to hear something like “Dream On” by Aerosmith, or a classic slice of Art-Pop by the Beatles?  “Longing” switches up the whole mood of the music more-so at the start than any other track on the record does, but I think it’ll be welcomed enough by listeners out there.  I’ll admit…there’s part of me that thinks this track belongs in the set, and there’s part of me that doesn’t.  There’s a part of me that thinks “Longing” is another excellent example of how to make hybrid music work, and there’s part of me that thinks this might be a real standout song on a different album for mentalEscape.  I suppose my worry is that the cleverness in the composition and melodic aspects of a song like “Longing” could potentially get lost in the mix by comparison to so much of what is on this record that’ll hit people the quickest…but hopefully, “Longing” gets the due credit it truly deserves.  I think there’s real meat on the bone here, ideas-wise.  You could even argue that something like this track brings mentalEscape closer to the Blues or even the Fantasy-based side of music…or again, maybe further back towards the classics in Rock that we’re all standing on the shoulders of today.  In any event, I feel like there’s real weight to “Longing” that makes it genuinely compelling to listen to.  The emotion in the guitar notes for example…I mean, that alone is worth the price of admission here.  “Longing” might end up forming a more complex relationship with listeners out there and demand a bit more of your focus and attention to appreciate it by comparison, but it’s a really great tune at the core of it all.

Yeah…overall, I’m highly impressed with the lineup of songs on Wordless and feel like this is definitely one of the stronger entries into the mentalEscape catalog to-date.  Is it front-loaded, like I’ve kind of pointed out his records in the past can be at times?  Look…I’m not saying yes this time, but I’m not saying no either.  Like I was telling ya…all I wanna hear is material that sounds like it’s made to compete with the best of the best on a record, and while in this instance, nothing’s going to take the place of “Eurasian Wolf” for me, I was more than pleased to hear the fight in mentalEscape to deliver an album that didn’t let up, and didn’t quit.  Right down to the end with “Infinite Horizons,” the material was highly inventive, versatile, and expertly composed…in fact, this last cut really does wonders to confirm how well put together this whole lineup has been, and how immensely creative the material is as well.  “Infinite Horizons” is like its own mini-Rock Opera…it might clock in at less than five minutes in total length, but it’s got so much going on with it as it moves from moment to moment that you really have to appreciate how much would be involved with its creation, and admire the execution of it all.  I might even go as far to say that, while my favorite tracks on Wordless are still definitely found in its first half, “Infinite Horizons” produces such a radiantly kaleidoscopic sound and adventurous ending, that this last track should definitely be considered in the same breath as those cuts you’d consider to be the best of the best within this lineup.  It’s been an extraordinarily busy year for mentalEscape, but so far to this point, I think what we’re hearing on Wordless is definitely one of the man’s best records, and more confirmation that his innovative & ambitious approach consistently leads to inspired music and exceptional results.

Find more music by mentalEscape at the official links below!

Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/artist/2nijFk5UCd4OgBMaOFlx5b

Soundcloud:  https://soundcloud.com/mentalescape

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGzA-og5m3ozwxWol7q_pdg

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