MINDPATROL - The Marble Fall

Mindpatrol - The Marble Fall

12 songs
62:55 minutes
***** ****
(self-released)

Bandpage

The first Mindpatrol album Downfall Theatre, released in 2013 with an accompanying novel, already caught my attention. The band around singer and novelist Luc François has been working for two years on the successor The Marble Fall, which offers well over an hour of music. This time there won’t be a novel, only the lyric sheet. Conceptually the new album is about the book of Genesis and the Fall of Man.

From a musical point of view, Mindpatrol sound a lot heavier than on the debut. The band is skilfully combining different genres of extreme metal, and while some just call it progressive death metal, I hear a lot more happening there. The album begins with Genesis, a quiet and gloomy track that reminds me a little of Type O Negative. This is seguing into Where Beauty Lies, a track which is gradually building momentum, opening the road for the heavier songs that are to follow. And believe me, from here onwards, things really get very heavy! An especially raw piece of music is A Marble Throne for which the band made a video clip. Despite all brutality, the musicians always find room for musical respites where they show themselves from a more atmospheric and dramatic side. Highlights include Crown Of Thorns which comes with progressive structures but also surprises with black metal elements. The band has definitely matured, and the third guitarist adds to the music’s even more playful nature than in the past. The eleven minute long Catharsis which concludes the album comes with a really long guitar solo. The two preceding Nemesis tracks have a more crawling nature, and next to some classical piano, we also get some doom metal. On the debut the vocals were generally considered the weakest link. This time there has been a lot of improvement with the screams and growls, but they are still sounding a little skewed at times.

This is only a minor setback though. The Marble Fall is a much more sophisticated album than Downfall Theatre. Despite its generous length, there are no lesser tracks to be found. The band has a lot of influences, yet manages to combine them in such an ingenious way that the songs don’t sound the same. Mindpatrol may not yet be among the most popular metal bands from Luxembourg, but they are definitely one of the most original ones.

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