THE MIND OF A BROTHER

Without a question one of today's most notable and highly hypnotic prog acts about the scene are Sweden's "The SPACIOUS MIND". Take note of these guys my friends they are simply bigger than life! "The Mind Of A Brother " marks the 4th CD released from these culturally cosmic inclined space rockers and stands on its own as another wonderful album. Not unlike "Organic Mind Solution" and "Cosmic Minds At Play" this album is full of what can only be described as a sonic mind blast. "Brother" is full of raging fuzz guitar solos, bongos and percussion, wild vocals, heavy sound bites and psychy backdrops. The SPACIOUS MIND are a wonderful mix of psych and progressive genres offering some absolutely stunning sonic breakouts. This album is not well suited for those long Sunday afternoon drives in the county , but instead is a great way to start your morning off right!

The aggressive stoner track "The Prophet Am I" and acid folk like "The Close You Get to The Sun" are incredible tracks, and the best ones on this CD in my opinion. The rest of the tunes are also good, but not totally exceptional. Drawn album covers are once again marvelous! I am still little troubled with some of the samples which I have heard before on the previous recordings, f.ex. the album begins 100% similarily as their first record! It's possible, that I just don't get some thematic message they are trying to give. Anyway, this is a good album, and it's certainly recommended to all those who appreciate psychedelic music.

Perhaps The Spacious Mind's best album (their debut Cosmic Minds at Play is also fantastic), Mind of a Brother is a psychedelic masterpiece. It is much different from the classic psych rock that you may expect, and draws from stoner rock and krautrock as much as anything. The closest psych prog album I can think of is Nektar's "A Tab in the Ocean" in the use of organ and heavy mood, but it is much more chaotic. All psych elements are in extreme excess, especially the "fuzz guitar" in the great solos and riffs.

Each track is over 10 minutes long and a mind-altering trip of its own. If I had to pick my three favorites, they would be "The Prophet Am I", "Interplanetarian Love Machine, Pt. III - The Final Solution", and "The Closer You Get to the Sun", but none of them really feel superior to the others from an objective standpoint. Simply put, if you love psychedelic music, and want to hear it taken to it's limits then hunt this album down. A masterpiece of psychedelic and progressive music.

It's kind of ironic that my biggest complaint about this album is that there isn't enough "space" for the instruments to breathe and be heard on some songs and sections. There's often so much going on that it comes across as noise and I felt the same way about their album "Organic Mind Solution". Not that these guys can't create space because they certainly do on one of my favourite albums by them called "Rotvalta" and another favourite of mine "Cosmic Minds At Play". Interesting because this is one of the band's highest rated studio albums, I unfortunately have too many issues with this recording. It clocks in at around 75 minutes. I agree with Eetu who mentions "The Prophet Am I" and "The Closer You Get To The Sun" as his highlights as they are mine as well.

"The Prophet Am I" is my favourite song on here. I was actually pretty excited the first time I heard this song and I was hoping for more as I spun the rest of this record. It opens with what sounds like a ram's horn which makes sense I suppose considering the title. A beat kicks in and builds as yelling(preaching?) can be heard in the background. It turns heavy at 3 1/2 minutes but not for long as a strong psychedelic vibe takes over. The heaviness will come and go though and I love that sound. Vocals will also come and go on this one and they echo before 11 minutes which sounds pretty cool. The guitar is on fire 11 1/2 minutes in. "House In The Country" reminds me of the picture of the band sitting outside of an old house in one of the liners of another album. This one is heavy from the get-go with distant sounding vocals. A lot of noise to my ears.

"Interplanetarian Love Machine Pt III- The Final Solution" is almost 20 minutes long. Heavy stuff early on as the guitar solos over top. The organ starts to run after 2 minutes. It settles around 5 minutes as the vocals arrive, then it kicks back in as the vocals continue. I really like the guitar 7 minutes in as the vocals have stopped. It settles again with vocals after 8 1/2 minutes before kicking back in hard at 12 1/2 minutes. This continues until after 16 minutes where it still kicks ass but it's more stripped down. It starts to wind down to the end. "The Closer You Get To The Sun" features plenty of atmosphere and intricate sounds including percussion and water sounds. Reserved vocals before 2 minutes then it starts to get heavy after 3 minutes but it settles back again late to a spacey atmosphere.

"Outlaw Mutation Boogie" is over 19 1/2 minutes long and it's the closer. It's divided into 5 sections. Strummed guitar and nature sounds to start but man this does not sound right as distant vocals join in. He's almost drowned out by the nature sounds and it's annoying to me. It all seems to mesh together and not in a good way. A change before 6 minutes thankfully with stressed vocals and a rhythm that builds. Cool stuff. We get an Eastern vibe to follow then the birds are back again. A change before 12 minutes as strummed guitar takes over with vocals. Folky is the word and I like it! Vocals stop as it becomes quite spacey until 17 1/2 minutes in when we get hit hard with heaviness and it's uptempo. It ends with spoken words including "I hope this trip is a good one."

I was hoping that as well but for me 3 stars fits the music and I'll turn to one of their other albums when I want to hear this great Psychedelic band. One of Sweden's best.