In 2010 the French stoner rockers of Mars Red Sky, currently consisting of vocalist/guitarist Julien Pras, bass player/vocalist Jimmy Kinast and drummer Matgaz, released their debut EP Curse/Sádaba, which was followed by their self-titled debut full-length in 2011. Since that time two full-length albums and five EP’s followed, with their last release being from 2017. That 2017 release was an EP titled Myramyd. However, it won’t take long anymore before Myramyd has a successor to be released. This successor, a full-length album titled The Task Eternal, will be released on September the 27th via Listenable Records.
During the beginning of opener The Proving Grounds we already get in the right mood for The Task Eternal: a short trippy intro, slow, heavy, inert guitars and at some moments a second, more melodic-played guitar. Add Julien’s vocals to that and the hypnotizing, psychedelic effect is complete, especially when this effect is amplified by the backing vocals or due to the vocals sounding a bit more in the back. Both these things can be heard in this opener.
Of course this hypnotizing, psychedelic effect is also amplified by the fact that the songs on The Task Eternal mainly contain quite a repetitive pace. Does that make it boring? Definitely not, because this trio delivers quite some variation in sound on top of that quite repetitive pace. The guitars regularly are sounding a bit spacy and trippy, such as in Reacts, we hear quite some nice guitarsolo’s, like the roaring solo in Collector. At some moments drummer Matgaz is also getting some extra attention, like during the end of Recast, that’s gets heavier and heavier and moves into the instrumental Reacts. The pause between both tracks is a bit of a disappointment here though.
Julien, Jimmy and Matgaz also show to have found a very nice-sounding balance between heavy parts and more relaxing parts. For example, Collector contains a very relaxed vibe, while it also sounds a bit heavy instrumentally at some moments. They also show to flow very easily between heavier and more quiet parts in, for example, Recast and Reacts.
To me, two songs are standing out very much, of which Hollow King is my personal favorite on The Task Eternal. Hollow King is one of the two songs of this album, Reacts being the other one, that sound a bit more complex than the other songs, but also still include that same nice, hypnotizing and psychedelic effect. Hollow King also contains quite a dark and threatening vibe instrumentally. This, combined with the beautiful vocals, makes Hollow King very special.
The other song that stands out for me is closing song A Far Cry. This instrumental, partly up building end of this album almost sounds enchanting and very relaxed. It’s a very great end of a very nice album.
Do you like stoner and/or doom? Then be sure to check The Task Eternal by Mars Red Sky!
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Hi!
I’m Tim van Velthuysen and I started DutchMetalManiac back in 2014. I’m 27 years old and I live in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Of course, I like metal, but I can also appreciate other musical styles. However, metal is what I mostly listen to. I also like going to concerts, meeting with friends and watching movies (especially arthouse).
