THE WHIRLWIND

Multinational and highly respected progressive rock supergroup Transatlantic releases an album in 2009 after their most acclaimed "Bridge Across Forever", the band took a whopping 7 year hiatus, and finally, dropping not only a new album but the longest epic in progressive rock history.

78 minutes of Symphonic Prog mastery and the Yes-esc and Beatles-esc tone, elaborate and whimsical musicianship, and a large atmosphere.

The Whirlwind: This is one long song, almost exactly 78 minutes in total length, an impressive length considering Roine Stolt's own band The Flower Kings has an hour long epic known as the "Garden of Dreams". This is a very in depth and complex album with a lot of Yes like qualities, amazing production, great harmonies and vocals, and incredible musicianship. The Whirlwind consists of 12 parts with the opening and closing tracks being the longest within the entire epic. I love the opening and how it has a lot of complexities, a primarily Roine dominated vocals. The opening is quite long at around 9 minutes, giving a very dynamic Yes like intro with a soft drift into the next part "The Wind Blew Them All Away". I find this entire epic very compelling, long but interesting, smooth to the ear but in some cases hard to get through for some. 74/75

There is a lot of material to go through on this album but the listen is worth it for the journey you are able to find when listening to this exceptional album. Is it the best Transatlantic album? Maybe, its tied for me with "Bridge Across Forever", but my intuition is telling me that "The Absolute Universe" will end up being the best of the bands discography.

Final Mark: 74/75 Percentage Mark: 98.66%

Rating: Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music