Praying Mantis - 'Katharsis'

The band have been enjoying a stellar career resurgence with the current ‘Praying van Mantis’ incarnation which features the hugely impressive Dutch vocalist, Jaycee Cuijpers, and his compatriot Hans in’t Zandt on drums, alongside the Troy brothers and Andy Burgess. They were great on stage at WinterStorm a few years ago and they now have a string of quality late-career albums to augment their fine body of work. This new record continues their fine tradition of mixing old-school classic rock tracks with a splash of melodic rock and some killer ballads.

The opening track ‘Cry for the Nations’ definitely falls into the epic classic rock category and it is quite magnificent, flowing from a piano intro into an almost power metal riff and drum sound, overlaid with powerhouse vocals from Jaycee.

I have always had a soft-spot for some of the more melodic songs in their back-catalogue, such as the brilliant ‘Cheated’ and the rarely-heard belter ‘Turn the Tables’. They continue that tradition here with ‘Wheels in Motion’ and the almost AOR quality of ‘Closer to Heaven’. That’s not the only celestial reference in a song title; ‘Ain’t No Rock n’ Roll in Heaven’ is another (Meat Loaf must have been really pissed off if that’s true) and the epic closing track ‘The Devil Never Changes’ continues the slightly morbid theme.

You can understand why more bands are reflecting on matters of mortality just now given the length of the rock obituary columns and the shit we’ve all been through recently, but it’s presented well here and it’s not a gloomy album in any way. Hopefully it has indeed been cathartic for them.

The autobiographical ‘Long Time Coming’ is the kind of fun romp that Thunder also do well and its lyrics reflect on the brothers’ trojan efforts in founding and perpetuating the band over the years. That theme is augmented by ‘Non Omnis Moriar’, which roughly translates as ‘not all of me will die / my work will live’ and that is an uplifting thought for any musician. The typically brilliant twin-guitar work on that track should indeed live long in the memory.

‘Sacrifice’ is another quality ballad and then there is the pomp-rock of ‘Masquerade’, so this album manages to reflect all of the multi-faceted aspects of the band’s style and career. On this form, I certainly hope that they do indeed ‘keep on rockin’ ‘til they drop’ as pledged and I’ll look forward to enjoying many more Troy Story sequels in due course.