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METRO SOCIETY
The London Conspiracy: Chapter I - 1898
Metro Society Records - 2024
http://www.metrosociety.net

In my slightly less-than-mild-mannered disguise as a reviewer of mystery and thriller novels, I just LOVE a good story. Give me a dead body and a reason to find out just whodunnit and I'm a happy guy. Throw in some bullets flying and plenty of derring-do and that only enhances my enjoyment.

Now imagine all that and setting the story to heavy metal music. That's what you get when you delve into the METRO SOCIETY album The London Conspiracy: Chapter I - 1898. A hard rocking metal album that tells a story featuring a mysterious murder, a driven, perhaps obsessed, unnamed detective and a city that even ten years on is still caught in the shadow none other than Jack the Ripper!

The story starts with the detective going to visit his mentor, the retired Metropolitan police commissioner. As he walks along towards his destination he takes in those same city streets he originally came from that were turned into avenues of terror during the Ripper's reign.

The instrumental "London 1898" combines ambient street noise with a rock music soundtrack as a way of accompanying the detective on his journey. I like the way the song serves as the instrumental overture introducing the story before diving into the central plot.

The song "City Streets" was the first track I listened to before the album's release and I loved it from that first listen. The song features a rocking pace right from the start. The lyrical content comes from the detective's point of view as walks said streets seeing that not much has changed in Whitechapel in the 10 years since the Ripper murders. Crime and poverty run rampant still and hopeless despair seems the order of the day since no one seems to care about trying to make things better.

METRO SOCIETY guitarist Chris Mangold and bassist Ian Ringler wrote the story behind the album. The two of them combined with drummer Will Mangold to write the music. But every story needs a storyteller and both Chris and Ian wrote the lyrics for the individual songs with singer George Maragaritopoulos and boy does the latter do a great job to bring this story to life.

As George embodies the "voice" of the detective, the story comes to both audio and, by using your imagination, visual life. The song "Lost Souls" finds the detective stumbling upon the murdered body of his mentor, the one who saved him from a life on the streets. Told in an uptempo style, a secret is revealed here about their connection and a message from his now dead mentor give rise to the need to solve the case.

I liked the way the music for this song, while always uptempo, came off just a bit muted in the first half of the song. Yes, it had a lively pace but the music aided the vocals rather than overcame them. Then over the latter part of the song, the intensity increased as the story dealt with the sharpened focus of the detective. And while brief, I dug the solo in the song and the brief underplayed cymbal work from drummer Will Mangold during the song's intro.

For the epic nine minute "Pieces of The Past", the aggressively paced music is split into the beginning and end parts of the song while the mid-section features Maragaritopoulous delivering a rapid fire vocal take as the detective's obsession takes root. Weeks pass with no resolution to the murder. Told to drop the case, he refuses and now begins to wonder who he can trust or is everyone conspiring against him as he questions "and who will answer for this crime?" But as his investigation continues, mysterious clues discovered give rise to the idea that the crime is somehow tied to the past...and to the Ripper!

The way METRO SOCIETY delivers the story through each song's lyrics makes you have to pay attention, there's no zoning out if you want to know just what's going on. But on the album's two instrumentals, the band helpfully gives each track a narrative description in the liner notes. For the instrumental "Society", we see the detective about near to madness making his way towards an abandoned tunnel, where the clues have led him. But his path does not go unnoticed...someone is watching his every move. Despite a growing feeling of dread...he enters the tunnel.

The delivery for "Society" is pretty fast and intense. The drums help convey that intensity while the rest of the music serves as a way to feel the "flight" of the detective as he races through the streets of London, hellbent on bringing justice to a killer.

And that brings you to the song "Underground" which has the detective now questioning what his obsession has brought him to. What does he expect to find in the tunnels. Will they be the answers he wants? And what is that he's hearing...when a voice speaks forth with a chilling "HELLO DETECTIVE".

Stylistically, the song moves at a much slower and restrained pace. It builds the drama of the moment as the detective makes a new discovery. The vocals are mostly softer than the other vocal performances on the album.

But that sense of restrained and softer music delivery disappear as the album comes to a conclusion with the song "Inferno". The music quickly grabs ahold of you, fast and compelling to say the least. The vocals are aggressive with an added grit to the delivery as the first part of the lyrics switches the narrative to the villain of the story. He tells the detective that he should've done as he was told, forget the case and move on. Despite roadblocks in his way and under watchful eyes, he managed to get a step away from the truth and now he can't be spared.

The narrative then switches back to the detective...who wonders how he could be so naive, to be trapped inside of the conspiracy with no hope of escape as he's trapped underground as a literal inferno surrounds him...with no hope of escape as the album comes to a unexpected cliffhanger ending.

If this had been an actual mystery or thriller novel, that type of ending might just have ticked me off but I was happy to see that the band confirmed on the CD booklet that "This story and the fate of the Detective shall continue in The London Conspiracy Chapter II."

Inspired by the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Alan Moore, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King, METRO SOCIETY's The London Conspiracy: Chapter I - 1898 provides plenty of thrills from both the great musical content and a gripping and compelling storyline. For someone like me who is deeply in love with the mystery/thriller genre of storytelling, I can't think of a better way to combine my two main loves...a rocking heavy metal mystery that will keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat throughout!

4.8 Out Of 5.0