MAVARA

First of all, I'm not a big fan of Progressive rock or Neo-prog, I'm more of a Progressive Metal fan and I enjoy extreme music with viking-aggressive riffs! However I listen to progressive rock sometimes. In Neo-prog scene I'm a complete newbie. I bought Mavara's latest album two or three weeks ago after a mini live (!) performance. "Forgotten Inside" is a dark masterpiece in my book. Sometimes I wish I could mix some of their riffs with my own music! Some remarkable tracks are about social disorders and sub-conscious pains and complexes, which is barely felt as it's like a sleeping dragon at the end of a mysterious cave.

Lyrics indirectly move you. Album's tracks carry a heavy load of creation and some tracks like "Forgotten Inside" are really catchy, even for a viking-obsessed freak like me! The singer has a good potential and a good voice. Vocals however, is pretty good on a few songs, and just "ok" on some other (by pretty good, I mean PRETTY DAMN GOOD!).

Songwriting is pretty creative, some tracks are extremely guitar-based, some are keyboard-based and some are a mixture of both with vocals taking the lead. So I can say "Something Is Lost" is completely a different story compared to "Remote Place" (which is another favorite of mine in this album). Arash Radan, shows his complete and brilliant set of skills on guitar in tracks like "Heaven and Hell" and "Try to Understand", just like Farhood Ghadiri, who puts his soul in the keys, before he push his fingers on them. The album ends with another perfect song "Old Pain" -- and pushes you to go back and shuffle the whole album again!

This is an Excellent work of art, I suggest you get the album somehow or visit the band's myspace page and listen to the freely available tracks like "Forgotten Inside" (Strongly suggested), "Something is Lost" and "Remote Place" and beware, you are waking the sleeping dragon!