The Reptilians - The Mentalist

The best things in life are free, or so the adage goes. Well for The Reptilians and their latest release, The Mentalist, it rings overwhelmingly true. They’ve released the effort - one track, 27 minutes in length – for free and can be downloaded at this location. It may also be suitable to acknowledge another, sort of, adage. Some of the best things come from nowhere and in this case the dim, murky nowhere.

From Idaho, The Reptilians have sculpted out a towering work of art here that many will struggle to put into words which would do it remote justice. It’s a sprawling work of morose and thunderous beauty.

The first five minutes of The Mentalist are dominated by near freakish spoken word verses from Doug Stanhope’s Die Laughing which give way to meandering guitar work and haunting melodies. At 8 minutes, paced and brooding croons permeate the air.

However all takes a crushing turn for the best then. The arrival of angular but dense guitar work really takes centre stage and maintains the emphasis throughout The Mentalist.

This track is heaving with ideas and elaborate thoughts that almost cannot be held with these already vast 27 minutes. The vocals become increasingly intense and bellowing in their delivery while the whole bed of riffs grows rhythmically. The earth shattering riffs continue to punish for its majority and it’s all packaged with a passion and zeal that would make Mastodon stand up and take notice.

A gritty and swampy aura is created when The Mentalist strikes its highest peaks. The guitar leads shine again at their very brightest, unsurprisingly at the end in its devastating, surging climax sending sharp, concentrated shivers down the listener’s spine. The Mentalist lacks only that of the superfluous and really, as far as music of any kind is concerned, that is a blushing compliment to heed with the utmost of attention.

8/10