At 39 minutes, this is more than an 5 track ep. It’s testimony to the fact that A Torn Mind from Scotland have plenty of ideas.
At first it’s not clear how it’s going to work out. Tending towards the soft Progressive, it’s like Sieges Even meet Level 42 with guitar moments of Dire Straits. The band themselves attribute their influences as Genesis, The Mars Volta, Dream Theater, Muse, Pink Floyd and Thrice. What is clear is that in common with good Progressive bands, they have a clear sense of direction, however mixed the output is. There are tunes, it doesn’t always flow, and it doesn’t twirl round and round like the aforementioned Sieges Even yet it’s pleasantly acoustic with added extras. The first three tracks could even be accused of lacking excitement and of being a bit slushy. But I came to realize as I listened to it more that this description doesn’t do justice to the band. The opener “Sixes and Sevens” starts as a piece of fast-flowing, keyboard-orientated Prog, and develops into a nice, mellow track, enhanced greatly by nice movement and a good mellow saxophone insert. The down side is the flatness of the vocals. The singer is out of his range here as he is on the next track “Edge of the World” but it seems to matter less as the album progresses. “Edge of the World” again has good melody but has a faster, flowing rhythm and is a feisty track. An interesting feature, which on some albums would grate, is the sample at the end of the tracks. Here it’s the sound of waves. “Titans” for me was pure Sieges Even. It stops and starts, it’s quiet and broadly acoustic but above all it’s rich and exotic. The net result is a good emotive sound. After four minutes, it breaks off into the mellower end of Dire Straits’s instrumental sound.
“Impurity” and “Vita” are amazing. The start off “Impurity” could be straight off Opeth’s “My Arms, Your Hearse”. This is just the start of the story. It goes back to a quiet acoustic-style Prog song for a short while. The guitar work beefs up and hypnotises us before the reappearance of the saxophone, but not as we have heard it before. It’s frenzied and mental. If that doesn’t play with our minds, we’re then treated to a breathtaking and clever assonating capello chorus. The pace picks up and the rhythm gets heavier and rises. That Opeth riff mixes with the saxophone. It’s powerful, effective and simply avant-garde. I detect no limits. It’s great. The track ends on a rich and distant echoing sound. How on earth do A Torn Mind follow this? Well, there are no immediate clues as “Vita” begins with a rock riff and the more familiar powerful and emotive song. The imagination then runs riot. An anarchic Prog section follows, not forgetting to invoke the sound of Mexico, sombreros et al along the way. Out of the blue appears an utterly pulsating passage in which sampled spoken parts transform into murky dialogue to the background of an ever developing hooky and captivating rhythm. Danger is clearly in the air. A Torn Mind like their samples and they like them to be bizarre. The guitars swirl while chaos is descending. We return to the original rhythm and song and the crescendo effect is powerful while not compromising on the emotion. It doesn’t end there though because the dark and sinister saxophone sound creeps in and finishes off this highly imaginative track.
I wasn’t sure at first about “Barriers” but the more I listen to it, the more I have been won over. Barriers in fact are what this work doesn’t have. I think it’s great that the band have imagination and choose to use it. They certainly captured mine with “Impurity” and “Vita”. There’s a bit of tidying up to be done, notably on the vocals side, but at the same time there’s a lot of creativity here for the future if the band choose to unleash it.
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