MARQUIS DE SADE — Somewhere Up in the Mountains (review)

MARQUIS DE SADE — Somewhere Up in the Mountains album cover Demo · 1981 · NWoBHM Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Certif1ed
Tastefully tempered with keyboards, this awesome prog-flavoured single from Marquis de Sade represents the melodic and inventive side of the NWoBHM like nothing else.

Delivered with passion and technique of the highest order, this really should be on the playlist of any fan of classic rock - for that is what it has matured into over the years.

While I mentioned prog-flavours, this piece in no way approaches the excesses of that genre, maintaining a tight structure and focus, but with nifty instrumental interludes that put it, if not right at the top of the pile, then somewhere up in the mountains pretty darn close.

Flip the single, and a chilling synth and chugging guitar pile into something a lot more inventive and obtuse, packed with angular tritonic dischords, peculiar instrumental insertions which screw up any notion of 4 to the floor, and some impressive Halford-like screams in the vocals.

This drops, Prog-like, into a more mellow, ambient section that reminds me of Marillion - before the release of the Neo-Prog luminaries' debut.

A wailing, screaming, Tufnell special guitar solo follows, over a multi-part backing featuring riffs that deserve the description "meaty", and kerbang! It's all over too soon.

It's really, really hard to pinpoint the influences on either piece enshrined on this slab of wax - truly, this band should have inspired an entire sub genre. It's not too late...

A collector's wet dream - a NWoBHM rarity which is not just great - quite simply awesome.
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