Mad Parish – The Dust of Forever Review

By El Cuervo

Woe betide the lowly copywriter / AI bot that dared to write that a band was ‘for fans of’ Iron Maiden, Virgin Steele, Camel, Rush and Rainbow. Iron Maiden and Camel are among my favorite acts in any genre, while the latter two boast a couple of the best rock albums ever released.1 Following this description I metaphorically elbowed other staffers aside to reach the sophomore Mad Parish record entitled The Dust of Forever. It’s certainly ambitious, weaving its yarn over 71 minutes and 21 tracks, including ten that run no more than two minutes designed to tell the album’s story through atmospheric interludes. Do these Canadians execute on these ambitions?

The comparator bands are reasonably appropriate. Mad Parish’s music falls somewhere in the blurred lines between 70s hard rock, 80s heavy metal, and prog rock. It prioritizes guitar and vocal melodies, but features plenty of synths and has conceptual aspirations supported by the story-telling interludes and a comic. The guitars play some solid riffs but these are typically limited to introductions; by the time they reach the verses and choruses, they’re more forgettable. For example, “An Age of Quell” opens with proper energy and weaves its guitars with synths in a Yes-sy fashion. But the ensuing verse lead can’t match the energy and invention of the introduction. Likewise, the first riff on “Cathedron Wakes” bridges technicality with melody and later bleeds into a crisp groove. But these cool leads are ruined with computerized vocals as the song develops. Hampering the core music the most is the production. The prominent synths undercut any guitar crunch, while the vocals can be over-produced and the drums lack punch through their weak bass presence. I like the leads a lot better when they’re exposed without the synths which stray into silly far too often. Dust of Forever is substantially rock music, but it doesn’t always feel like it.

I also struggle with the sometimes unclear songwriting signposts. Songs like “Possess the Child” careen from melody to melody with little indication that you’ve moved from verse to bridge to chorus. Of course, it’s possible to pick these out if you’re listening closely but without strong melodies, it feels directionless. And while this song improves in the second half, its instrumental passage might as well not belong to this song at all because it’s melodically inconsistent with the remainder. This trait extends across the album. In particular, the ten story-telling interludes are unnecessarily distinct from the main songs. The flute on “Outerest in Irisius” is just as odd as the horns on “Hunted.” Worse are the first two “Transmission” tracks that feature intriguing snippets of music from other genres – happy folk rock and jazzy swing – but are nonetheless superfluous and strange. They don’t improve the overall quality or flow, and these interludes add 15 minutes to an album that already feels too long.

All this endorses the position that Dust of Forever lacks a musical sense of direction. Given that it has a concept and supporting comic, you would expect that it would at least trace a discernible route through its many songs and interludes. But this isn’t the case, and there’s no sense of climax towards the end of the album. The last main song is just another song enclosed by weird short tracks. Across an album this long, I at least want some sense of payoff but there’s none. However, the most damning quality of Dust of Forever is that even if it only ran for 30 minutes, it would still feel repetitive and dull. I struggle to get through just a ten-minute stint without my attention wandering elsewhere, let alone all 71 minutes. Spreading material that lazily sways from sub-par to mediocre over such a long period results in a record that proactively saps my energy and enthusiasm.

While Mad Parish may stylistically fit between the bands that form their core influences, the quality here falls far short. Dust of Forever lacks the infectious energy of Iron Maiden, the progressive levity of Camel, the technical grandeur of Rush, and the groovy boldness of Rainbow. This album isn’t totally devoid of value, but the choice fragments are buried in a deluge of other material that I cannot approve of. Picking out the positives involves cherry-picking specific guitar or vocal melodies from specific songs. This is possible but it wouldn’t tell you much about the overall quality or key characteristics of the album. Hopefully, the remainder of this review has done so.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-release
Websites: madparish.com | madparish.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/madparish
Releases Worldwide: January 31st, 2024

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