MARATHON - THE FIRST RUN (Prog Rock)

This is Marathon's first album released in 1994.

Album: The First Run
Bitrate: 224 Kbps
Size: 123 MB

Covers included.

Tracks:

1 Beyond The Veil 6:34
2 Man In The Mirror 6:15
3 The Seventh Seal 7:36
4 Medicine Man 6:37
5 I'll Be There 5:29
6 Open Field 5:17
7 Voices 8:08
8 Patterns Of The Landscape 9:34
9 Red Ride 5:45
10 A Wall 5:54

Some info:

The sound is like Rush and Saga and a bit like contemporaries Wings of Steel (from the same area, I believe) and maybe some Everon, up-tempo mostly with the guitars and vocals very prominent, the keyboards in melodic support and the drums riffing away (I do like this guy's voice).
The album opens with Beyond the Veil (also known as Behind the Veil from the demo), a driven up-tempo song about life after life with very good vocal melodies and is overall a good opener.

Man In The Mirror (no not a Jackson cover) starts off a lot slower, with a percolating keyboard and, I must admit, it's kind of beautiful. The refrain is kind of heavy and has a groove ,but has been put together well, especially the keyboard that comes through once in a while. After two refrains the keyboard starts some kind of solo, that they might as well have been left out though it is used as a transition to the guitarsolo. Then a saxophone starts and leads up the closing refrain after the which the guitar solos again and after a while starts a question/answer game with the keyboards until the end of the song. The backvox are very good in this song by the way. The lead and back complement eachother nicely.

The Seventh Dimension starts off very softly with singing and some keyboards. It reminds me of a ballad by For Absent Friends. The lyrics are nonsense about the seventh dimension, but hey a song has got to be about something (okay maybe not always, Claire Hamill for instance). Of course there's the obligatory guitar solo (which is long this time) after which the singer takes over again until the end of the song.

Medicine Man starts percussive. This song reminds me a lot of Saga as it starts, the keys and especially the guitar. The lyrics are a bit well, corny and the song is mostly mid-tempo.

I'll Be There is meant as a party song, very up-tempo and there- fore not much to my liking. The lyrics have the same content as Friday On My Mind. Should be a great song live though, maybe a bit like Incommunicado and Garden Party; they're the weakest songs on the respective albums but they're alright live.

The sixth song is one of the best songs on the album. It's a ballad, starting off very lush and soft and reminds me of Easter. Contrary to what you might think after seeing the title, it's about what all ballads are about: broken relationships.

Voices starts off very hectic with fast keyboards and is up-tempo for the most part, though the middle part features some very slow guitarwork, keys and singing after which the song start again and a female singer takes over. Not so interesting this song

The longest song on the album starts like an Kitaro song (I mean can you tell two Kitaro songs apart). You guessed it, this songs starts out kind of slow. The vocal melody isn't exceptional, but this is compensated for by the guitar melody. For the rest this song is alright but the fires a bit out of it. Passing six minutes we hear someone talking Dutch (might be inter- sting for you to hear this). It's a weatherforecast or maybe it's the news and I think they're talking about the disaster in 1953, here in Holland (but I'm not sure) and I guess that's what the singer means by that Mother Nature destroys the land (in fact Mother Nature was destroying civilisation) and this is exemplified by some bubbling keyboards. A song that this song reminds me of is Common Ground (yes, IQ) mostly in atmosphere.

Red Ride starts off with anoter sample of people talking and a guitar mimicking a siren. The song is about someone who looks at someone with whom he has just been in a car accident ("I See Red, All Over Your Skin") and I think he is kind of upset about it. If I interpreted the menacing end of this song well, the singer might go out for his revenge on the one that caused the accident. (the term 'het rood voor de ogen hebben' literally translated as 'having the red before your eyes' means to lose your mind tempora- rily).

The last song is A Wall. It starts out somewhat groovy, but it's also somewhat of a singalong (not to be negative though) and ends with a typical Saga guitarline.

Conclusion
This is definitely neo-prog, with good vocal melodies, well played and driven (though mostly in the first part of the album). If you're into neo you might give it a try especially if you like a band like Saga or Wings of Steel or maybe For Absent Friends.

Enjoy this one and SEED!!
I will seed untill there are 3 seeders, after that it's up to you!