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>We now come to John Miner's involvement with the band Mantra Sunrise. This needs to be split into three sections starting with the tracks "Brudenell", "Your Heart (acoustic version)" and "Mantra Sunrise" all being superb examples of acoustic guitar instrumentals that give this album a bit of variation. The acoustic guitar continues on the excellent mood creating "Casino" which gives the feeling of hot sultry nights, the music and vocals are a dead ringer for The Triffids meeting The Go-Betweens. This is high quality music. Again the Triffid sound can be found on "Your Heart" and the superb "Northern Lights" and "Why".
We now come to section two with the utterly amazing 20:00 min. progressive track "Land Of Sprinager". This is deep, mood creating, atmospheric, progressive, dark and complex, again I have to say an utterly amazing piece of music with good acoustic/electric guitar passages and spot on vocals.
Finally, and unfortunately, we come to section three with "Time Of The Year" where the guitar gives the impression that it's dragging its feet as if it's struggling to keep time and is a bit over powering and out of tune, apparently deliberately, to fit in with the concept of the song but this track has nothing going for it. On "Sleeping Whales" and "Dying Day" we find the guitar being repetitive and simplistic and too up front and distracting although the entry of the flute on the latter just about saves the (dying) day.
So, what a strange
mixture of styles, rock/progressive and Australian indie music, "Triffids" style
that is. I love equally both these categories of music so I have no problem with the
contrasting styles, both are equally superb. All the vocals are spot on and the
amazing progressive epic is worth the price of admission. As for the three tracks that I
find a bit simplistic, don't let this put you off, there is some excellent music here.
Give it a try.
Review by Terry Tucker
Mantra
Sunrise Band Members with Ann Jorgensen Mantra Sunrise Why See also the review of
John Miner's classic rock opera "Heavens Cafe' " Click here for the Tributary
music website for more info.
Joel Bissing
Lead vocals and bass
John Miner
Electric and acoustic 6 and 12 string guitars and vocals
Wayne Garabedian
Drums and keyboards
Flute
Gary Newmark
Drums
Tracks
Time Of The Year
Brudenell
Dying Day
Sleeping Whales
Northern Light
Your Heart
Your Heart (acoustic)
Casino
Land Of Sprinagar
Mantra Sunrise
