Mars Red Sky have in the last few years, entered and somewhat dominated the European stoner rock scene, In the short time between 2010 and now the band have kept up an impressive work rate, releasing several E.P’s and a debut album, extensive touring and hitting some big euro festivals, and getting the attention of “Listenable” records who have snapped them up and are releasing the band’s new album “Stranded In Arcadia”.
With the whole 70’s style stoner rock scene, it can be very difficult to make your music stand out, especially since there are quite a few bands doing it at the moment and when it boils down to it the entire purpose of the genre is paying homage to a sound that has already been done and has a special place in history. So you can try and sound as authentic and old school as possible but risk being accused of plagiarism if you go too far, or you can try and put your own spin on it but risk being accused of sacrilege if you go too far the other way.
This makes it a difficult balance to achieve for a band, and for me personally, Mars Red Sky have not quite mastered it yet on this release.
Don’t get me wrong these guys clearly have a gift for what they are doing, and it’s evident from their sound that they obviously make a great live band which has got them some deserved attention.
There are times when this album really hits its stride that are brilliant, and when they really bring the riffs they have a glorious Deep Purple crossed with Electric Wizard fuzzy guitar tone that give them a real punch, but just as often I found they take a little too long getting to that point, and the vocals don’t always sit well with the rest of what’s going on.
It’s far from a bad album, it’s a good listen for fans of fuzzy stoner rock, but it’s just that whilst listening it brought to mind the most recent “Witchcraft” album “Legend” which for me really set the benchmark for this sort of retro style, and the vocal’s in particular also bring to mind the ultra-popular “Ghost B.C” and when drawing comparison to these bands, this band are not quite ready to compete for my attention.
That said this is still a good album, if you are into this sort of stuff then sitting down on a sunny afternoon with a cold beer (or something stronger if that’s your poison) and blasting this out will surely leave you satisfied.
These guys clearly have a good future ahead of them, if they slow down their relentless schedule and take a couple of years carefully considering material for the next album they could definitely create something great in its own right, but for now there isn’t much for me to pick them out of the crowd.
(6.5/10 Mark Gleed)
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