TransAtlantic
The Whirlwind

You know when, during Halloween week, a restaurant offers a menu entirely based on pumpkin and you rush over to devour anything orange in sight, so when you're done you feel fuller than a Jack-o-Lantern before being hollowed out?

Well, I know, it's happened to me. Twice.

The first time during last week, the second after listening to TransAtlantic's latest effort, "The Whirlwind".

This colossal album, comprised of a single seventy-seven-minute song divided into twelve movements, is perhaps a small masterpiece. The sound is far less tied to the original bands of the "Transatlantic" members, but is inevitably more inspired by the old '70s Progressive bands, to the point of often plunging into citationism ("Evermore" very much recalls King Crimson, "Rose Colores Glasses" Peter Gabriel, etc.), which is not too negative considering we wouldn't struggle to recognize this album among others released in the golden age of Progressive. 

"The Whirlwind" is thus a very compact and homogeneous work that offers us masterful and very sentimental guitar solos, a perfect drum, a bass that is always very present and able to fit in everywhere with sweet melodies, and a voice that at times closely resembles that of Peter Gabriel, all of which is made even better by "heavy" moments like "Lay Down Your Life". What more can we ask for?

Absolutely nothing. But honestly, I can't bring myself to give this album more than three stars, I'm not even sure why. Maybe I'm not made for Progressive. 

But there's no doubt that "The Whirlwind" is just like a pumpkin-based menu. Perfect but exhausting. And that's enough for me.

At least until next Halloween.