If you are anything like me, your overall impression of this new album from MARYSGARDEN is likely to be one of scale. Even when the songs aren’t driving along at more alt-rock-friendly speeds, they are big… and lush, detailed and inticingly textured, richly multi-layered, and a reminder that volume and velocity are not the only tricks in the rock and roll playbook.
Take the titular opener, slow and seductive, ornate and intricate, anthemic and impressive, the sort of song that played live, I’m sure would take your head clean off…take that all you foot-on-the-monitor-same-old-same-old-by-the-numbers_ rock and rollers. Big is indeed beautiful, and ornate is awesome.
But at the other end of the spectrum, songs like “Freefall” are precision-tight, riff-driven, and groovesome. But yet again, it is the band’s attention to detail that wins the day, as slowly the spaces between the chords and beats become home to myriad sonic arrays and tantalizing motifs, as if the band knows that it is their job to give the song more than is strictly necessary to make it work. Their throw-away sonic lines and counterpoint sounds are so perfect that they are better than the riffs many bands write in their whole careers.
“Black Death Star” shows us just why Laime Bite’s vocals are much commented on, drawing comparison to Harriet Wheeler or Dolores O’Riordan, “Original Sin” is big, brooding, post-grunge perfect and “Prophecy” slips easily into almost pop territory, but does so Trojan Horse like, only this time opening up to reveal all manner of unexpected sonic delights.
This is a phenomenal album, but then again, MARYSGARDEN were well received straight out of the gate; add 20 years of honing their skills, and it is no wonder that they have produced a veritable masterpiece.
