- Oct 22, 2006
- 142
- 0
- 16
Mandrake - Mary Celeste
GreyFall Records - Out Now
By Daniel Fisher
Mandrake are a female fronted 5-piece Swedish crew who play what they describe as gothic metal without the "weepy self pity and melodramatic genre clichés". Fair enough. It’s hard to take this mission statement seriously though when they have titles like ‘Fragile’, ‘Forgiven’ and ‘Paralyzed’, all highly clichéd song titles. All this is forgiven though as I really wouldn’t class this band as gothic metal.
If you listen to this rather strange album you would be forgiven for thinking: ‘Why has the guitarist from The Deftones joined a female fronted Swedish band?’. The whole record is swamped in reverb and goes past early Katatonia reverb into Minerva-era-Deftones reverb. The band sound like they are playing to you from about a mile away and while sometimes it works, I think it’s probably a lucky mistake. The song ‘Fragile’ I mentioned earlier is actually quite a cool song, as is ‘Solace’. Birgit Lau’s vocals need to be recorded with much more clarity and detail though. Dare I say go listen to an Evanescence album for quality vocal performances/recording? You betcha.
My main gripe with the album is that I just don’t think the music suits the subject matter. When I think of pirates and haunted ships and think of Accordions, Violins and folkie instruments. Instead, here we have a sort of electronic tinged, almost industrial feel to the songs that don’t enhance the subject matter. In fact, it detracts from it and is jarring.
The band are obviously talented, but the confused nature of this record will, in my opinion, hinder their chances of being hugely successful.
Official Mandrake Website
Official Greyfall Records Website
GreyFall Records - Out Now
By Daniel Fisher
Mandrake are a female fronted 5-piece Swedish crew who play what they describe as gothic metal without the "weepy self pity and melodramatic genre clichés". Fair enough. It’s hard to take this mission statement seriously though when they have titles like ‘Fragile’, ‘Forgiven’ and ‘Paralyzed’, all highly clichéd song titles. All this is forgiven though as I really wouldn’t class this band as gothic metal.
If you listen to this rather strange album you would be forgiven for thinking: ‘Why has the guitarist from The Deftones joined a female fronted Swedish band?’. The whole record is swamped in reverb and goes past early Katatonia reverb into Minerva-era-Deftones reverb. The band sound like they are playing to you from about a mile away and while sometimes it works, I think it’s probably a lucky mistake. The song ‘Fragile’ I mentioned earlier is actually quite a cool song, as is ‘Solace’. Birgit Lau’s vocals need to be recorded with much more clarity and detail though. Dare I say go listen to an Evanescence album for quality vocal performances/recording? You betcha.
My main gripe with the album is that I just don’t think the music suits the subject matter. When I think of pirates and haunted ships and think of Accordions, Violins and folkie instruments. Instead, here we have a sort of electronic tinged, almost industrial feel to the songs that don’t enhance the subject matter. In fact, it detracts from it and is jarring.
The band are obviously talented, but the confused nature of this record will, in my opinion, hinder their chances of being hugely successful.
Official Mandrake Website
Official Greyfall Records Website
