Marble House began life in 2012 in Bologna on the initiative of Filippo Selvini and Giacomo Carrera although it wasn’t until 2015 that the band found stability and started to play live on a local level. Their influences range from the seventies prog of bands such as King Crimson or Genesis to newer acts of the likes of Radiohead and Porcupine Tree. In 2017 they recorded an interesting debut album entitled Embers with a line up featuring Leonardo Tommasini (vocals, keyboards), Matteo Malacarne (vocals, bass guitar), Daniele Postpischl (guitar, keyboards), Filippo Selvini (guitar) and Giacomo Carrera (drums, percussions). During the recording sessions founder member and guitarist Filippo Selvini stepped out for personal reasons but the other musicians completed the work and the album was finally released in 2018 on Lizard Records with the band now reduced to a quartet to promote it on stage. Anyway, the fruit of their perseverance is really good and it’s worth listening to...
The opener “To Make Ends Meet” is a complex, committed track dealing in a poetical way with alienation and mass control, consumerism and hollow conformism. The rhythm is nervous, the mood disquieting as the music and lyrics conjure up images of empty people looking for a leader such as sheep that need a shepherd. Who dares to rebel against the rules is considered a fool by a conservative, greedy society of schizoid men! Then the music fades into the following “Reverie”, a dreamy instrumental track that sweeps tension and rage away with a flick of the tail...
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The introspective, melancholic “Riding In The Fog” reminds me every now and again of Pink Floyd and, in some vocal parts, of New Trolls. Soaring melodies and evocative passages here give shape to an insomniac, silent ghost riding on the hills in a hazy night. An autumnal night where everything around you gets blurred and dreams turn into nightmares...
“The Last 48 Hours” and the long suite in four parts “Marble House” that ends the album are in some way linked and tell about the feelings you can experience because of the loss of a beloved person. Sorrow, grief, delirium, threatening shadows and the inner sensation of cold that an empty house can convey… A marble house! But here the marble house could also be intended as a metaphor for a grave and the overall mood of these last two pieces is that of a touching, heartfelt elegy. In some passages the vocal parts remind me of an Australian band called Augie March, in other sections the dark atmospheres could recall King Crimson or Steven Wilson but it would be unfair to compare this long, complex pieces to other things. You have to listen to it and judge for yourselves!
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