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The Mary Dream - Beautiful WorldNashville Indie Duo The Mary Dream's 2005 Debut Album
With gentle vocals and mesmerising hooks, The Mary Dream are currently recording their sophomore album. We review the debut, 'Beautiful World' on SuperUniverse Records.
In The BeginningSome bands meet in the strangest of circumstances; whether it's at one another's gig, or collated into one cohesive venture by a Svengali-type figure, the origins of many a band can take up a whole feature on their own. Nashville duo The Mary Dream follow this path, having met via a classified ad in a newspaper, though their route and subsequent results afterward would have you believe they've been making music together forever. Elise has an almost ethereal quality to her voice which, when combined with some of the most beautiful arrangements you'll ever hear from Blake, transcends the music of The Mary Dream from just another indie band with a female vocalist to something far deeper. Their self-produced debut album from 2005, Beautiful World, introduces us to their magical combination and bodes well for the currently-at-work follow up, due the summer of 2007. Flawless BeautyTitle track and the first song on the album, Beautiful World is a perfect example of what The Mary Dream is all about. Gentle melodies hover behind Elise's vocals, which bring to mind British songstress Dido in the way that the voice carries an already strong melody into another sphere. Soft, wispish and almost hypnotic, the song's the perfect mix of acoustic and full instrumentation. The soothing atmosphere continues with tracks like Liar, which uses feedback technique to allow a radio-like spoken background, and Let Me Breathe, which again assays you with gentle vocals overlaid onto some of the most melodic arrangements around. Bittersweet SymphoniesHowever, there is a darker side to The Mary Dream, and an antidote to the optimism shown elsewhere on the album is the song Say My Name. A pining lament for a lost love, it describes the pain felt in simplistic yet emotive lyrics - "say my name / and pull me out to space / say my name / and this will be erased". With just a hint of cult indie mellowsters Mojave 3, it's a track of immense beauty and feeling, and is a wonderful way to close the album. Future Hopes And FearsIf there's any criticism that could be laid at the album, it's that some listeners may find it too soothing. Although musicians like Dido and Scottish band Travis have shown the way to success in this kind of area, the genre that The Mary Dream have positioned themselves in is also one with more casualties than survivors. Yet if any band has the chance to succeed, it's this one. With a sound that should win many fans, and not just in the indie scene, The Mary Dream is in the ideal position to continue making inroads. Tracks like More merely compound this - picked up for feature on the Denver edition of MTV's popular The Real World show, it shows the sound is already turning heads in all the right places. The Dark SideAlready working on the follow-up to Beautiful World, the band have indicated that this will be a darker, edgier release than the impressive debut and is due for release later this year. Combined with a run to the finals of UBL Ultimate Band competition (the results of which are announced April 2007), expect to hear a lot more of this understated duo.
The copyright of the article The Mary Dream - Beautiful World in Indie Music is owned by Danny Brown. Permission to republish The Mary Dream - Beautiful World in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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