MAJESTIC-12: A HIDDEN PRESENCE

With "Majestic-12: A Hidden Presence" the Space Mirrors have moved further in their musical journey, especially with the forms of compositions. Instead of hypnotic trance loops, there is much more altering in the song structures, and also totally cinematic ambient aural installations among the heavier tracks. The opener "Tunguska" is a good introducer to these more bizarrely twisting compositional turns. Musically there are also more dimensions and color, not least by the presence of Nik Turner on saxophone and Cyndee Lee Rule's with her violin.

The thematic body of this epic record is focused to the UFO conspiracies and legendary visitation events. The horror associations of these encounters of the third kind are in my opinion well present at some of the heavy rock moments, for example on the song "Roswell-47", where the moods go to quite oppressing levels from the singing and melodic perspectives. In addition of these more frightening sequences, there are also some quite beautiful synthesizer driven new age conjurations, these being in minority however. Musically the record felt to my slightly less balanced as the early record, but my own preference to more meditative music than complex aggressive and vivid rock operas possibly affect to this experience. I also did not like very much the harsher male vocals, dominating this album stronger than the record from 2006. But I believe if you prefer aggressive heavy music, you may add an extra star to my own rating. My own favorite moments were the ambiences and groovy loungings of "Krill Report" along with the powerful riff carpets of "Night Visit".

The recording is produced again very professionally; sound quality continues the ace standards of its predecessor, an awesome booklet has all the lyrics and information in an epic visual outlook, and the transparent CD case has a fine quality illustrations fitting to the UFO conspiracy themes. I liked the seriousness how these thematic matters are taken on this disc, even the introduction essay of the album booklet is from webmaster of Ufocasebook dot com. Thus this album is recommended to the cosmic heavy rockers and all UFO witnesses, and it is interesting to wait how the next album waiting its release on the time of writing will be sounding then. For me personally the recordings of this band have been a nice encounter with sympathetic musicians, who believe strongly to the things they are doing, and I wish them all success with their further voyages in musical cosmic exploration.