It's Firebox time again! Slow, massive chord progressions under heavy hanging skies? Check. Submerged deathy growls and sorrowful clean choir? Check. Suicidally long doom composition? Check. MAR DE GRISES have wandered through the mountains of their homeland Chile and discovered songwriting lessons originating from the other side of the earth: the emo-heaviness of KATATONIA and the pagan epics of PRIMORDIAL. The semi-classical buildup of open chords and romantic VANGELIS new age ambient teeters on the verge of delivering a cosmic vision, but the tempo is often plodding and the songs continue for a depressively long time without unique and interesting events.

"Draining the Waterheart" is close to being a memorable and beautiful album, but a lack of editing, resulting in expansions and repetitions of the same mood over minutes and tens of minutes, lowers the score. Some of the doom is crushingly heavy and the synth is used for good counterpoint melodies instead of silly twinkling, so it would be nice to reward this with a better score, but the 10+ minute tracks such as "Kilómetros de nada" (what an appropriate name!) incite too many stifled yawns to get through. Although if you are a veritable fan of KATATONIA or FORGOTTEN TOMB, you know what to do: Hang yourself and get this album. I'm not sure which is the proper order.

- Devamitra

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/mardegrises2

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