Now you've heard the term 'concept' a million times, but the new album by Agents of Mercy takes the idiom to a higher level, all the while pushing the prog envelope to its extremes.

'The Black Forest' is a surreal journey – a mysteriously glowing metaphor for a trip through dark, disturbing, scary times; a lifelong uncertain journey encompassed by greed, lust, hunger for power and money, eternal life, and mind control. And guess what – we're the prey!!! This is Agents of Mercy's first concept album with a longer song format. Tales of dark future times, seen through the eyes of a weary traveler in wiggly warped woods of our imaginary journey some 300 years ago. Elzbeth Bathory meets unholy rapists and flesheaters in a quiet town and deformed freaks of a traveling sinister circus haunt you at bedtime. Did you lock the door? Is the monster your neighbor?

"The music this time is a more rock oriented path we've taken," says guitarist, band leader and Flower Kings legend Roine Stolt, "for good reasons – we are a rock 'n' roll band at the core, but we sprinkle bits of symphonic, world, jazz, medieval and folk. Guitars and drums have moved forward in the soundscapes, but the gnarly Moogs and mellotrons are still present, this time a bit more haunting and angular. The songs are longer and more elaborate, but sometimes with an iron fist of raw power riffage that resembles Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin or early King Crimson rather than YES or Genesis. Don't fret – in this 56-minute journey there is plenty of symphonic bombardment too. In fact, we think there is even more than on previous albums!"

The music press has described the new album as, "More muscle, more progressive interplay, fat riffing insane keyboard shredding, but with plenty of melody combined with pure classic prog and symphonic moments."