Mardelas - Ground Zero (Review)

Last year, band Mardelas shows the peak of their skills. This year they also pleased rock music fans with their mini-album.

My Rating: 79/100 Best song: Apocalypse

I will say right away: album is good, but it turned out to be somewhat different than the previous. Well, diversity is always good. But this is not so simple. I can't know how they work, but I get the feeling that most of this album was forced done. That is, the guys initially had one song, and the rest were forced out of the composer. This is very familiar to me - I have something like this (even if not very often), when in an hour I need to publish the text, but it's only 10-30% ready. But you know what is most interesting about this? The fact that in such situations is clearly visible the training level that these guys have at highest level. Actually the album turned out bright and interesting.

Now specifically. Composer's work is gorgeous - the post-apocalyptic concept is surprisingly easy to lay on a high voice and a powerful rhythm section. But still there is a feeling that someone was squeezing out of composer by force. That is, composer had an idea, but someone or something made him less carefully select methods to solve an artistic tasks. Firstly, it's felt in a not very wide variety. Secondly, it's felt in the album structure. This structure can be described something like this - something like an intro, four very powerful tracks and a boring midlle-tempo song at the end. It would be interesting if the 5th track was made a longer dive bomb (at the beginning), and the track itself would be put in place of the first one (I think that the first track is not needed). In this case, the album would start very powerfully. I also don't like monosyllabic naming of songs.

But I really like the vocalist. I can describe the virtues for a long time, but after the name “Marina Hebiishi” everything becomes clear - this is a real professional, every action of which is amazing. This album is no exception.

Instrumental parts sound very powerful. This is one of those albums where you don’t have to pay attention to the lyrics - instruments will say a lot without a vocalist. For example, guitarist is great. It was in this project that Oikawa-sensei played for real. And this album is just a continuation of the demonstration of his skills. Actually, the result is so powerful guitar parts that it makes no sense to discuss it. Bassist - here, too, everything is so interesting that it is also difficult to describe in words. At bass attack is well underlined - mediator technique is felt. Bassist also performs fairly complex parts that are impressive. Drummer is also very cool. However, I would like a greater variety of drum patterns. You should also pay attention to additional instruments. I really like that composer thought of not only creating an atmosphere for other instruments. I especially want to mention the violin and sitar at beginning of third track - this gives the song a special charm (this despite the fact that the song itself is not particularly remarkable). There are also very cool synthesizer solos in tracks 2, 3 and 5.

Ensemble named after Marina Hebiishi once again showed his high professional level. Yes, not quite the way I wanted - it’s still difficult to produce quality works every year. But these guys once again showed that they took the stage for high achieves.