The Mentulls – Recipe For Change: A Review

The Mentulls release their new album, Recipe For Change, on 22nd October 2021 and I’ve had an advance copy to listen too. Here is my review.

The Review

A band that has the sorts of influences that The Mentulls have and the comparisons that they claim on their website I should be enjoying. Mention Rush, Focus, Walter Trout, Journey and the like and I should be on board.

However, aside from some very fleeting moments, I wasn’t grabbed by this album.

The muscian-ship and production are what you would expect from a band in 2021, however, I just never got into the lyrics and I couldn’t find enough in the music itself to really make the album worth listening too.

I got a vibe of Marillion throughout the album, the singer has a similar style to Steve Hogarth and despite the music being melodic, it never developed into the depth that you get with Marillion.

The first note I made was a single word ‘pleasant’ and maybe that is it’s problem.

The album just didn’t challenge me, I didn’t have to concentrate on anything. I appreciate that it takes 13 years for Tool to release Fear Inoculum and not everyone has that length of time or bloody-mindedness to release that type of album. But it is possible to make music that is complex and challenging.

I think my frustration may have something to do with the average length of the tracks. The 9 tracks average about 4 minutes 40 and this just doesn’t feel long enough to let the songs breath and evolve the complexity that I was looking for. In fact it’s only on Smoke & Mirrors where I feel the band got a bit complex, even then those moments were fleeting and lasted a few seconds instead of letting them extend and move and change and evolve.

So my first note stands, it sounds pleasant, but this is damning with faint praise.

Conclusion

I don’t like saying bad things about music, after all, it really is your personal taste whether you like something or not. So all I’ll say is that this album wasn’t for me. It wasn’t complex enough, the lyrics didn’t grab me and there weren’t any hooks that I could latch onto.

Score 6/10

Track Listing

1. Easy to Walk Away 3.32
2. Recipe For Change 3.53
3. Opened My Eyes 5.06
4. Learning Through Living 3.57
5. Summit Fever 4.53
6. Saviour 4.42
7. Find A Way To This Journey’s End 4.45
8. Smoke & Mirrors 4.41
9. Worlds Made Of Sound 6.21

Label – Progblues Music
Release – 22nd October 2021

For all things on The Mentulls, click HERE and to purchase the album, click HERE