Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The concept album has always a long-standing favourite of those to whom narrative is just as important to the musical experience as that which is created by the sound and the instrumental vision at hand by a group or performer. The list of albums, not always in the Progressive stronghold, is long and admirable, and has touched upon subjects that exemplify, frame, and warn of the human condition, albums that have drawn upon societal change, on the themes of epic novels, on films and their stars, and perhaps most of all on the subject of dystopia.

It is telling that its bright side twin of the euphoric and utopian dream never truly leaves its mark on the world of the concept album, one that explains a truth that humanity understands paradise is an illusion, that nirvana will never be attained because it doesn’t sell, that the rapture is an exercise is self-confession. Dystopia sells and is admired as a struggle undertaken because it is closer to the effects of our species own history; sad songs sell, tears reflect our hearts, and when placed in a concept of war, fear, and dread, it is almost as if the master of such woe, Edgar Allen Poe, was stood before us narrating the brilliance at hand to found in Muellercraft’s own Dystopia 31.

The impossibility of highlighting a set of tracks within the narrative of a large-scale concept double album is always on the mind of the listener, and one that in some respects actually doesn’t require an answer or an affirmation of greatness, and in Muellercraft’s album, led by the incredible Jay Mueller, what should be noted is how discernible each track is, it lends itself to the drama of Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime, to the sweeping symphony of What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, and even the underlying tension of helplessness to be found in Tommy by The Who, and tracks such as Better In The Future, Minister Of Love, Mission, Troubled Sleep, The Wrong Man, and Revolt frame the sense of completeness with fierce and unadulterated bliss.

Mastered and mixed by Gary Tanin, the effect of a close working relationship with Jay Mueller, sees Dystopia 31 to be a more than just an amalgam of the genre, it is a standout richness of exploration of layering a narrative with upbeat music but a tale as old as human imagination and realisation of the condition of the anger, the storm within each human heart.

A terrific burst of energy, an album to truly get your teeth into.

Ian D. Hall