Mcsplosions – Foaming Heights
Mcscplosions, solo project of Marian Connel-Limer, records stunning prog-rock with his beautiful multi-instrumental talent. His debut record, Foaming Heights, is a beautiful front-loaded album.
Unpredictable and dazzlingly alluring, Foaming Heights Pt. 1 is an excellent opener to the album. Tones of the piano are beautiful tuned, while the bass frequencies are masterfully balanced. Instruments seamlessly weave in and out of sonic soundscapes, while colourful moments are outlined by their eccentric frequencies and jazzy chords. The track suffers from a somewhat cheesy and repetitive melody in the first third of the track, though progresses incredibly well beyond its crescendo. The opening melody sounds much less cheesy on the closing track, Foaming Heights Pt. 2, which incorporates some well-earnt vocal presence and interesting electronic manipulations. The general crescendo of synths and steady wall of noise make for an excellent outro. Sadly, the track is rather unfocused for the first half, while the drumming is less-than spectacular and rather poorly mixed.
Lovely Death of a Vibratron is perhaps the peak of the album; effortlessly transitioning between segments and consistently utilising masterful use of space. After an enjoyable prog-rock climatic mid-section, suspenseful electronics accompany the anaemic acoustic-led stream of conscious into a fascinating outro. March to Salvation, in contrast, is not as strong. The song often feels much too prog rock for its own good, and as a result sounds too familiar. Prior to its inception, the album struck a fine balance between post-rock, drone and psychedelic prog-rock. Along with March to Salvation’s drone outro, The Eve of Incarnation sounds much too like an experiment dragged out without purpose. The album could have certainly done with these two tracks.
Had the album consisted of the first two songs, along with a more refined finale, it would have been an easy recommendation. Unfortunately, the album is rather self-indulgent past a certain point and has difficulty recovering from its choices. Given the first two tracks make up nearly forty minutes of music themselves, it’s easy to recommend adding these songs to your next playlist. If the opening two tracks are any indication of what’s to come, Mcsplosion may be the most noteworthy underground post/prog musician of the upcoming decade.
Above Average
Listen to it here:
Mcsplosions – Foaming Heights
