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Mars Red Sky - Mars Red Sky (2011)

Posted By: robixn
Mars Red Sky - Mars Red Sky (2011)

Mars Red Sky - Mars Red Sky (2011)
EAC Rip | FLAC, CUE+LOG | 258 MB | Full Scans (300dpi) | Filepost/ Freakshare
Alternative/ Desert/ Psychedelic Rock | Emergence Music

Excellent 70's minded psychedelic rock from Bordeaux, France. Equally influenced by the old school vibes of Sabbath & Zeppelin.

Underwhelming can be a lot like overwhelming when the sound itself you’re facing is decidedly subdued, easy-going and groovy, but you’re overwhelmed by its simple beauty. No, this isn’t an article on semantics, it’s an album review, but I thought that would best sum up my experience of Mars Red Sky’s debut offering. I would like to thank Stonerobixxx for, once again, steering me in the direction of something awesome.

Mars Red Sky is from Bordeoux, France, and if anything, France has some of the more off-kilter acts, at least, in my humble experience. They play what can be described as stoner/desert rock with 70’s and psychedelic influences. What this entails is quite underwhelming: fat, fuzzy stoner tones, leading bass, adequate (but not leading or explosive) drumming, grooves, solos and nice riffs. That is what one expects with a label like this and that is what we get, what is overwhelming is the spacey, desert-cruise-as-daylight-is-waning type calming, soothing and frankly awesome feeling the band tosses your way. Seriously, Mars Red Sky’s offering is one of the most effortlessly beautiful (and I do mean beautiful) albums of 2011, easy. This, they do sort of owe to their vocal use. The vocals are, simply put, ethereal.

The album starts with what got me hooked on these guys, the incredible “Strong Reflections.” It’s got this calm, grooving riff, singular, that they repeat throughout the song to lull you in. Spacey, soothing, twilight-stars vibe comes off of this song and takes you with it. It’s an evening cruise, marked by switching the riff between guitar and bass, subdued vocals and incredible lyrics (you will be singing “And when I travel upstream, I’ll meat you in a dream.”) That they follow it up with the slightly more up-beat “Curse” is a sign that more than just soothing songs await you. It kicks off with this incredible, dark bit, which is delegated to bass when the song kicks in, and it’s a harder, more rocking, spacier song than the first. The guitars deliver the fuzz and the hooks deliver the psychedelic and the slightly darker moments, but the song itself as a more serious air than the one before.

Then comes “Falls”, the first of the two instrumentals. Now, I normally hate instrumentals with a passion, but this one takes the biscuit – it’s got this infectious, bombastic, lumbering riff at dead center, and the band chooses to keep half of it, and play with the latter part (first by adding some licks of guitar, second by distorting the rhythm and knocking it off kilter). The song also comes bundled with atmospheric, noisome dark moments of what I can only assume are horns, it’s brilliant. In order to dispel the progressively darker moments, I guess, the band follows it up with “Way to Rome” which is a surf rock piece done in the style of stoner/psych rock. It keeps the band’s style of grooving, singular riff and catchy hook, and in the latter, they hit harder and let it ride with a churning variation of the song’s main riff. The song is home to the more brilliant moments of atmospherics in a bass-driven environment, and it’s brilliant.

Next up is the second instrumental, this time an acoustic, named “Saddle Point.” Licks of guitar all drowned in vibrato and echo. These partitions, also, later evolve into a more persuasive solo orbit around the base line of the acoustic riff throughout the song. It’s a nice, calming piece, and just as well, because the band decide to bring forth their blues influence next. “Marble Sky” is a bluesy ride through the fuzzy, distorted pastures of the psychedelic, and believe you me, it lays the psychedelic on THICK – whether it’s 70’s style keyboards, distorted/vibrating vocals, subtle licks of guitar accompanying similarly styled riffing, it’s everything that a label “psychedelic” brings to your head, basically. It also features broken solos throughout, emerging time and again, so watch out.

The album comes to a close with “Up the Stairs.” It’s like the tracks preceding it, but somehow mellower, and the thing is, the main riff builds upon the vocal melody also, and it’s basically a cool-down track; it’s easy-peasy, goes down smooth and lingers on your tongue just long enough to make an impression. It’s like the album comes full circle with the song and/or is just the step after the soothing first song. All-in-all, it’s easy on the ears.

What you can count on is the same mixture of being overwhelmed by something so subdued and underwhelming in its delivery. What you can also count on is cutting-edge psych rock delivered with stoner tones, infectious grooves and nice solos. However, if you’re looking for a whole lot of riffs, look elsewhere, which brings me to my only gripe: most songs feature, perhaps adequately, a singular riff around which the entire song is established, and while that riff is always catchy and memorable, it does get you too used to the album too quickly. Other than that, this is an almost effortless, tireless album that will keep you groovin’ and soothed. If anything, it deserves a place in your collection, if you like rock music at all. 9/10

-Sarp Esin, Doommantia.com
Tracklist:

1. Strong Reflection (5:31)
2. Curse (4:04)
3. Falls (6:27)
4. Way To Rome (5:21)
5. Saddle Point (4:16)
6. Marble Sky (6:03)
7. Up The Stairs (7:58)

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 2 from 29. April 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 28. July 2011, 19:00

Mars Red Sky / Mars Red Sky

Used drive : _NEC DVD+-RW ND-3650A Adapter: 4 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 5:31.15 | 0 | 24839
2 | 5:31.15 | 4:04.21 | 24840 | 43160
3 | 9:35.36 | 6:27.26 | 43161 | 72211
4 | 16:02.62 | 5:21.61 | 72212 | 96347
5 | 21:24.48 | 4:16.41 | 96348 | 115588
6 | 25:41.14 | 6:03.72 | 115589 | 142885
7 | 31:45.11 | 7:58.37 | 142886 | 178772


Track 1

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Extraction speed 4.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC DCA48D8A
Copy CRC DCA48D8A
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [342FE281] (AR v1)
Copy OK

Track 2

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Peak level 97.2 %
Extraction speed 5.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 3AB3ED72
Copy CRC 3AB3ED72
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [3CB9D235] (AR v1)
Copy OK

Track 3

Filename C:\Users\Robin\Music\Lossless Robin\Mars Red Sky - Mars Red Sky (2011) [FLAC + Scans]\03 Falls.wav

Peak level 98.8 %
Extraction speed 5.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC FA28C4C2
Copy CRC FA28C4C2
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [6FA888DF] (AR v1)
Copy OK

Track 4

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Peak level 98.8 %
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Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 6B4EA082
Copy CRC 6B4EA082
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [8317A851] (AR v1)
Copy OK

Track 5

Filename C:\Users\Robin\Music\Lossless Robin\Mars Red Sky - Mars Red Sky (2011) [FLAC + Scans]\05 Saddle Point.wav

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Peak level 98.5 %
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Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 93E31A98
Copy CRC 93E31A98
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [53331EE4] (AR v1)
Copy OK

Track 6

Filename C:\Users\Robin\Music\Lossless Robin\Mars Red Sky - Mars Red Sky (2011) [FLAC + Scans]\06 Marble Sky.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 98.8 %
Extraction speed 6.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9B0FBB8A
Copy CRC 9B0FBB8A
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [FF83206C] (AR v1)
Copy OK

Track 7

Filename C:\Users\Robin\Music\Lossless Robin\Mars Red Sky - Mars Red Sky (2011) [FLAC + Scans]\07 Up The Stairs.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 93.3 %
Extraction speed 7.6 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC EE8F6730
Copy CRC EE8F6730
Accurately ripped (confidence 1) [E58C6417] (AR v1)
Copy OK


All tracks accurately ripped

No errors occurred

End of status report

==== Log checksum 5668FF546361541CD04315FBA50E00977CF22C232BE9BE718F97B65DF5CA6B46 ====


Line-up:

Mars Red Sky is:
Benoit Busser
Jimmy Kinast
Julien Pras

Recorded by Pierre Fillon in the Bardenas Reales Natural Park (Spain)
Mixed by Pierre Fillon and Mars Red Sky in Bordeaux, Except "Saddle Point"
Recorded and mixed by Mars Red Sky @Mad Reel studios, Bordeaux (France)
Mastered by Mats "Limpan" Lindsfords @Cutting Room studios (Sweden)
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