I Am The Manic Whale: “Bumper Book of Mystery Stories” (2023) – Album Review

Summary

I Am The Manic Whale’s triumphant fourth album “Bumper Book of Mystery Stories” deftly navigates and overcomes the challenges inherent to the concept album: combining clever storytelling and thematic delivery with an engaging musical presentation. The band successfully fulfills the promise of any good horror, science fiction, and adventure anthology, with thrills and chills aplenty, and bestows them upon us in a thrilling melodic prog sojourn.

Album Info

The Introduction Nobody Asked For But It Ties In… Eventually

Here’s a fun fact about your humble Park Ranger: my very first favorite horror movie was a swanky British anthology film called Torture Garden. Now don’t let the title fool you, this wasn’t some nauseating gorefest or hack-n-slash ultraviolence pile-on. Not at all, dear readers. Though not a production of (but similar to) stalwarts Hammer Films, Torture Garden was a notable 1967 horror film looking to terrify you from within rather than simply grossing you out.

I was around nine years old when I first watched the movie on Nite Owl Movies with Big Wilson (one of these days I really have to do a write-up about Nite Owl Movies). This program aired every weeknight from midnight to … whenever it ended, really. The titular narrator Big Wilson hosted the show live, in downtown Miami, showing two or three movies, sometimes a few film shorts, to insomniacs and movie geeks alike. Even then, at age nine, I fit both categories.

Torture Garden truly ignited my imagination, catalyzing my love of chills, thrills, spooks, and mayhem. The anthology film told four chilling tales, book-ended by Burgess Meredith as “Dr. Diabolo”. Diabolo ran a carnival sideshow, enticing the protagonists from each tale to glimpse their fates from a fortune-telling machine (or was it?), one patterned after Atropos, one of the Greek goddesses of fate and destiny.

I’ll spare you a plot synopsis because (1) who gives a crap, and (2) this is supposed to lead to today’s album review, and we’re already burning daylight. Suffice to say, Torture Garden wasn’t the first horror anthology movie, nor was it a particularly good one, but what stood out for me was how “Dr. Diabolo” was able to entice these poor souls into his tent with promises of The Ultimate Spooky Experience. You knew (and THEY knew) this would never end well, but curiosity absolutely obliterated their common senses.

The Actual Introduction

So it’s with that Icarian spirit of horror and hubris that UK band I Am The Manic Whale indulges with their fourth album, Bumper Book of Mystery Stories. Decades ago, bassist and vocalist Michael Whiteman (whose full name forms the anagram that comprises the band name) found an old book entitled “The Boys’ Life Book of Mystery Stories” in a dusty bookshop, filled with tales of terror and adventure, and I suppose it must have stuck. He and the band drew inspiration from the old tome to come up with their own stories, as well as some pop culture history and existing fiction, to create their very own book of tales to amaze and astound and terrorize.

Hence we have Bumper Book of Mystery Stories, an album and novel multimedia project in which the band becomes a collective version of Dr. Diabolo. Here they beckon us onto a train journey into the terrifying, with all the warnings and disclaimers therein, promising to shock and awe us into a state of cheeky terror. We are promised a sojourn through several tales of horror and amazement, during which our minds will be utterly vaporized clear out of reality.

So with that backdrop, let’s tear open the pages of the book, drop the headphones over our ears, and see if Bumper Book of Mystery Stories succeeds in fulfilling the intriguing and ambitious promise I Am The Manic Whale has set before us.

Review

Ghost Train (Part One) opens the album in full Dr. Diabolo mode, and clearly sets the stage for what awaits:

Since you ask me for a tale of such horror ‘twill curdle your very blood
Since you ask me for a fantastic mystery that will befuddle your mind
Since you ask me for rip-roaring adventures both to excite and amaze
Since you ask me for surprises you can not explain

Climb aboard – this is the scariest ride you’ve ever had
Climb aboard – you might not survive or you might just go mad
Climb aboard – we’ll take you to places you don’t want to go
Climb aboard – it’s not really an option, you can not say no (you can’t say no)

Accompanying this EULA are enchanting 12 string guitars, harmonic wails of both allure and warning, and a surprisingly gentle and melodic sounding piece. Initially, at least. When the heaviness kicks in (along with the recurring four note motif that we’ll hear again throughout the record), the harmonic wails become more immediate, panic-stricken, or perhaps just demonic. Maybe all three. Either way, the train has long since left the station. We’re in for the ride, whether we like it or not.

Patient AB opens up with a heavy rock shredding pattern, almost a “Spirit of Radio” blast of static. The rest of the band joins in and then drops back to a theremin-sounding spookiness. There are ghosts afoot, and the 50s horror/scifi aesthetic aligns well with the storytelling. A lone subject hears voices in their head, of spirits perhaps, urging them not to panic, that they mean to help. The voices (ghosts?) assure the subject that they used to work at a children’s hospital, and that the subject is suffering from a brain tumor of sorts. The spirits implore them to visit an address where they can get scanned and get help. Except that whomever is helping the subject, and the ultimate “cure”, well we’re not quite sure what happens here. Were they cured? Killed? Transformed? Was there ever even a brain tumor? Or even ghosts?

The narrative is undeniably eerie, but all of it served well by the music. The overlapping vocal lines, utilization of heavy rock elements and creepy haunted house flourishes, and tight musicianship from the band really drive this song along nicely. “Patient AB” fulfills the promise of the album right out of the gate.

“Dream Fortune” initially lulls us with some jazzy acoustic guitars, melodic bass, and percussion. The tune is quite disarming, with an upbeat pop sensibility and undeniable catchy charm in its presentation. As far as narrative goes, this track is a bit elusive. A man is visited by dreamers, or perhaps he is one of the dreamers himself, who is given visions of a great hidden fortune. Perhaps in his own backyard. And yet he walks miles around his town, digging for this prize, all the while scorned and laughed at by everyone around him. And yet his work seems to benefit everyone around him. Or something. Regardless of the seeming ambiguous nature of the lyrics, “Dream Fortune” remains an engaging track.

“Secret Passage” channels every Choose Your Own Adventure book you ever read, thrown in with a bit of Goonies fun, several Scooby-Doo episodes, and every last ounce of Tom Sawyer adventure and imagination. The track evokes a summer adventure in which a group of kids and their faithful pup, armed with flashlights, knapsacks, ginger beers, sandwiches, and hard-boiled eggs, discover the ultimate fun: the titular secret passage in a forbidden bedroom. This leads to all kinds of fun setpieces: underground tunnels, lighthouses, old hotels, attics, creaking stairways, mazelike catacombs, etc. And of course the bad guys whose nefarious plot must be discovered and thwarted.

What a fun track. It opens with some post-grunge guitar riffage, melting into an uptempo prog rocker with punchy bass and drums, wistful harmonies, sparkling piano runs and thick curtains of organ tones, and tight, effective drumwork. The extended keyboard solo is an album highlight. After spooky spirits, body horror, and dreamlike obsession, “Secret Passage” brings the adventurous fun to the band’s collection of stories.

“The Incredible David” presents a peculiar and haunting tale. A young boy named David begins having visions, or perhaps total awareness or understanding, of the Greco-Roman past after visiting a Roman archaeological site. His extended vision is a gateway into past worlds and lives, seemingly to the point of madness.

The song retains multiple engaging elements: the shimmering piano lines, percussive drumwork, overtones of mellotron, and enchanting vocal deliveries. But of all the album tracks, this one resonates with me the least. There is a sad, tragic atmosphere to the tune that I immediately connect with, but the individual parts don’t quite gel into a single cohesive work. But even if the overall whole isn’t greater than the sum of its elements, it still retains some impressively enchanting elements. And its tragic atmospherics mesh well with the album’s overall theme.

“Nautilus” captivates from the onset and maintains its allure across its almost fourteen-minute span. This retelling of Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” is an engaging winner. The track channels a Queen-esque flair and playfulness as we tag along for the adventure. And I mean, what an adventure. Rhyming “schooner” and “harpooner” is utterly inspired. And the musical flourishes are entirely engaging: a repeating piano riff to invoke ascending and descending in the oceans, vocal harmonies emphasizing a friendly if crazed cetacean, and a spirited prog-rock interpretation of a giant squid attack. Easily a standout, “Nautilus” could be the synecdochic torchbearer of the entire album.

What an ordeal! Well, it’s time for a quick commercial break, so let’s try to get you to purchase THE hot children’s toy of 1982. Enter “Ernő’s Magic Cube”:

Credit is due to Notes Reviews for their insight on this record, in which they made the connection between the song and the prosaic advertising pages that used to appear in these story collections. And true to the time period, there are elements of 80s synth pop, new wave, and the like throughout the song. Those keyboard tones and gated drums are straight out of 80s Central Casting. And yet “Ernő’s Magic Cube” hardly feels derivative or even out of place on this record. Quite the opposite, to be honest; it’s a spirited and welcome bit of uptempo, upbeat fun.

And believe me we’ll need that uplift, because album closer “We Interrupt This Broadcast…” brings us face-to-face with our own extinction. Running fourteen-and-a-half minutes in length, the band brings their epic closer to bear with full musical prowess, adroitly undulating between the proggier and more melodic elements. The story takes us to a full-on alien first contact, in which an advanced alien species announce to us that we have been under their observation. They’ve seen us nearly wiping each other out with acrimony, genocide, violence, and war. They invite us to reject destruction and embrace peace, growth, humanity, and evolution. Oh, and also: they’ve given us one year. When upon their return in 365 days we have not moved completely away from self-destruction, they vow to finish the job for us.

Yikes.

Now I won’t spoil the ending, except to say if you’ve ever watched a single episode of Twilight Zone or read Richard Matheson or Harlan Ellison, you know how this is gonna turn out. And as we readers are left in melancholy and despair, the Ghost Train from the opening track returns to finish the song. The ride is over, and they warned us.

Now that you’ve heard these tales of such horror, you’ve come to the end of the ride
Now it is time to open the doors and see who has come out alive
Now you’ve encountered these harrowing questions that must have inverted your brain
Why did you ever decide to get on this train?

And in closing…

I Am The Manic Whale’s triumphant fourth album Bumper Book of Mystery Stories deftly navigates and overcomes the challenges inherent to the concept album: combining clever storytelling and thematic delivery with an engaging musical presentation. The band successfully fulfills the promise of any good horror, science fiction, and adventure anthology, with thrills and chills aplenty, and bestows them upon us in a thrilling melodic prog sojourn. They manage the ambitious task of breathing excitement into musical storytelling that, in lesser hands, might have come off as stale or trite. Bumper Book of Mystery Stories is an engaging project, well worthy of your time.

What similar albums does ChatGPT recommend?

While it behooves me to remind my readers that everything you just read is 100% Mills, let’s ask our friendly neighborhood AI for some similar album recommendations.

“The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) – Steven Wilson“ (2013)
A hauntingly beautiful work, this album draws listeners into a world of ghost stories and melancholy. Its lush musical landscapes combined with compelling narratives make it a natural companion for fans of “Bumper Book of Mystery Stories”.

“The Source“ – Ayreon (2017)
A sci-fi epic told in a sprawling double album, “The Source” is one of Ayreon’s most ambitious projects. Combining elements of rock opera with progressive rock/metal, it offers a sonic journey that aligns with the expansive narratives of “Bumper Book of Mystery Stories”.

“In Contact” – Caligula’s Horse (2017)
A prog-metal album that’s both emotive and intricate, “In Contact” delves into tales of human connection, art, and the nature of existence. Its thematic depth combined with stellar musicianship makes it a worthy listen for fans of I Am The Manic Whale.

“Empath“ – Devin Townsend (2019)
A rollercoaster of emotions and styles, Townsend’s “Empath” encapsulates everything from serene ambient passages to intense metal breakdowns. The album, like “Bumper Book of Mystery Stories”, thrives on its unpredictability and vast sonic palette.

“Prehensile Tales” – Pattern-Seeking Animals (2020)
Emerging from the prog rock scenes, this album delivers a mix of storytelling and musicianship that echoes the intricacies of both “Bumper Book of Mystery Stories” and I Am The Manic Whale. Its diverse tracks weave together forming a cohesive, memorable experience.

Output from ChatGPT, OpenAI to Mills, 23 July 2023