MAVERICK: Ethereality (MELODIC HARD ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

It's not very common these days to talk about a melodic hardcore album that doesn't come from the Nordic countries, and even less about an opus released by a Northern Irish band. That's why this "Ethereality" is a rare commodity, and why Maverick, a Belfast combo born in 2012, is an exception. This fresh production follows three albums released between 2014 and 2018 which allowed them to tour with the Poodles, Treat and Crashdiet.

Maverick is a quintet with two brothers guitarists. One is on the six-string, the second behind the microphone. David Balfour has a voice similar to that of Chris Daughtry and the energy that he deploys, reinforced by particularly present choruses, participates greatly in the quality of the opus, just like the soli and riffs played by the pair of guitarists. By their ferocity, they approach more of the metal than the hard rock. To balance this debauchery of energy, the melodic content of the music, closer to the flights of a H.E.A.T. or an Eclipse, comes to calm the game by offering to the whole a particularly catchy aspect.

In this homogeneous album, we can evoke 'Never' and its particularly easy listening tendencies which sometimes bring back to the musicality of Coheed & Cambria, and the radio friendly 'The Last One' endowed with beautiful guitars and a viscerally successful chorus. Let's also note 'Dying Star' characterized by some riffs reminding of Iron Maiden and 'Ares', a track with a telluric rhythm and twirling guitar duets. Beyond these few examples, it is advisable to insist here on the really neat work of the six-strings which are omnipresent on all the tracks.

Here is a beautiful Northern Irish surprise which is offered to us in this new spring of confinement. Out of almost nowhere, Maverick comes to shake up the certainties that were ours until then. No, the Nordic people are not the only ones to be endowed with the capacity to release pleasant melodic Hard Rock albums. From now on, we'll have to count on this newcomer whose next releases will have to be watched very closely. - Official website

MAVERICK

ETHEREALITY

AUTRE LABEL

MELODIC HARD ROCK