I’ve been aware of Rhys Marsh now for over a decade. Avid followers of The Progressive Aspect know him from such reviews as Mandala’s 2015’s Midnight Twilight album, or Mollmaskin’s Heartbreak In ((Stereo)) album, or Rhys’s solo albums. A phrase I used to describe one such album, Rhys’s October After All, was melancholy, yet paradoxically uplifting. This is a recurring characteristic found in much of his work.
As I type, I’m listening to the album for the first time. I often like to mash the keyboard in a stream of consciousness stylee, in an attempt to jot down my first impressions. That’s before reading any press release. I’ll then go on to refine it once I’ve become familiar with the music.
The first thing you will notice, as did I, is the track times. I remember recently watching a famous YouTube influencer, probably Rick Beato, asking if we remember when songs would have an introduction. In that YouTube video Mr. Beato probably also remonstrated against the trend of having songs last no longer than two minutes (though the BBC have noted that the average length of a hit single in the first six months of 2025 rose to almost three and a half minutes).
Mandala says phooey to this trend. The opening to this, Mandala’s third album’s opening, says balderdash to this short form music malarkey from the music manufacturing industry, and opens with a ten and a half minute whopper!
We have the first song, by no means the shortest on the album, at over ten minutes, with a long introduction and some Mellotron! All we need now is some eBow, and I think this qualifies as a Progging epic! And a Tom-Tom and phased Bass-led track (possibly a fretless Wal) is always going to grab my attention. Modern pop records would be approximately a third of the way through by now. So, this is very much the sort of record that will appeal to music fans whose attention spans exceed that of their vintage biscuit tins (you know who you are).
And possibly to Rick Beato!
This album sounds HUGE!
Production – the drums on Hiraeth sound like actual drums! As a person who played drums back in the last millennia, I can tell you that what you hear on most modern rock music mixes is a scooped mid-range, punchy approximation of what tom toms really sound like, because the studio engineers, mixers and producers are deliberately trying to get the drums to cut through a densely layered and probably heavily compressed mix. Not so on Hiraeth. These sound like real tom-toms. God, that’s refreshing! And towards the middle of the song there’s some lovely long ringing resonating from the cymbals (which ring like the very flat bells that cymbals really are), with metallic overtones that wash away into the mix. Bloody delightful! Worth getting the album just for that!
And yet, the production and mix on this entire album demonstrates Rhys Marsh’s production chops with layered and dynamic mixes, and the drums still have the required presence.
Not that this is heavy going, but two tracks in I’m needing a break. The initial listening experience for this reviewer, who is more inclined towards harsh industrial rock, electronic beats, aggressive and intensive mechanized rhythm, or even more atmospheric ambient music, looked at the 18-minute, Supper’s Ready challenging runner-up-run-time of Kingdoms Of Eternity. Time for a cup of tea (yes, that’s how rock’n’roll I am).
Still laughing in the face of modern trends, Rhys wields an axe, and delivers an ominous sounding arpeggio, heralding such lyrics as;
and
followed by some extremely powerful segments, probably best played loud, that deserve to get you on your feet and slowly bobbing your head like a mesmerised gothic zombie at a Doom Metal gig, but with crooned, not growled vocals. Yet within the same song there are more subtle segments that underpin the somewhat doom-ladened theme of this 18 minute epic.
Not being familiar with Mandala’s early work from the end of the last millennia, nor their post hiatus work from the mid twenty-tens, this is unlike the music I expect from Rhys Marsh, but his mark is unmistakably there. And as if to demonstrate, the album closes with a very Rhys-like song… melancholy yet paradoxically uplifting.
For an album that feels like a seventies progressive rock album to this genre-ignorant reviewer, that runs for over an hour (making it most definitely a product of the digital age), this album is over far more quickly than you’d expect. It builds an atmosphere for you to share with its creator(s). Sometimes a little bombastic, sometimes bordering on tender, and with many adjectives in between, I found this an engaging an interesting album. Buy it and put it, as they say, in your ears.
TRACK LISTING
01. Darkest Day (10:26)
02. Hiraeth (11:16)
03. Kingdoms Of Eternity (18:14)
04. Unknown Edges (12:43)
05. The Blue Ocean (10:21)
Total Total – 62:57
MUSICIANS
Rhys Marsh: Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Mellotron, Piano, Synths
Will Spurling: Drums, Percussion
Silje Marsh – Spoken Word
Daniel Leirvik-Marsh – Spoken Word
Shirley Marsh – Spoken Word
ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: Autumnsongs Records (Burning Shed)
Country of Origin: Norway
Date of Release: 14th November 2025
LINKS
Mandala – Facebook (Mandala) | Facebook (Rhys Marsh) | Bandcamp | YouTube | Website Autumnsongs Recording |
