Marble Arch

Another Sunday Bright (Century Media 2002)

Album review

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This is another Swedish band who has the future ahead of them. This is their debut called "Another Sunday Bright". But they’ve also released two ep-s before this album. First came "Demisen Of Crown" in -95 and then "Focus" in '98. The members are originally from Bollnäs Sweden but now they live in Gothenburg Sweden. In 2001 they signed with Century Media and the pre-production for the debut began. The guys went to Astia Studio-A in Lappenranta in Finland. The studio owner is Anssi Kippo who also produced the album. He has also produced Children of Bodom and Lullacry amongst others. I find the stuff he has made with Entwine brilliant.
Marble Arch consist of real competent musicians. Niklas and Martin complete each other on guitar well. Johan has a powerful voice and also a wide vocal range.

Johan Wadelius-lead vocals
Niklas Brodd-guitar
Martin Boman-guitar
Petter Ter-Boch-drums
Jesper Bagge-bass

There are 10 tracks on the debut and all of them are extremly good. It’s a strong debut. They also have Tanja Laino from Lullacry on backup-vocals in some of the songs. The music Marble Arch plays can best be described as melodic, dark rock with influences of goth. There is some similarity with the Paradise Lost album "Host" but instead of keyboards, Marble Arch use guitars and Johans voice is high up in the soundpicture. The cover of the album is beatiful and also as melancolic as the album .
"Another Sunday Bright" starts with "A Million Crises", it’s got a dark intro before the band kicks off. "Silent Dance" and "The Inmost" are some faster songs and they are pretty dark and sad. "For Real" is also a quite dark and sad kind of song. "Not The Ones" is an uptempo ballad, (Johans voice impresses a lot on this track). "Dead Air" is another track with a slow, dark intro, but in the middle of the song the tempo rises. It’s one of the faster songs in the album. Tanja is singing back up vocals at the end of the song and it sounds very beatiful. Tanja also contributes with her voice in "End Of Words" and once again it’s extremely beautiful. "Another Sunday Bright" finishes with "Last Day Ever". It’s got an intro with only drums and Johan’s voice, before the rest of the band joins them.
It’s an incredibly strong debut. And it's going to be hard to follow up this one. Once again Sweden shows that it’s a leading country when it comes to this kind of music. Marble Arch has the potential to go far, very far...

Reviewed by: Anders Sandvall