I would like to thank you all for your support to Mayadome

Spincity interview

Review by Larry Daglieri

Review by Alzn

Sacred Magazine (german)

BY BRETT K.

I have listened to Near Life Experience for quite a bit over the last few days and feel compelled to respond. First, I'd like to address the vocals: there has been quite a bit of mention about the various effects used on the vocals. And I admit that they are processed quite a bit. But I  don't think it's a question of good or bad but more a question of: does it work? What was the  desired effect and does that effect work in helping establish the mood on the disc. And I think it does work. Would I rather have some cleaner vocals here and there? Yes, I would. But that's a  personal preference. I tend to be extremely picky about vocalists, more so than Larry D. But I enjoy the new Mayadome Vocalist quite a bit. And, once I wade underneath the myriad vocal effects I hear more than a passing resemblence of Roy Khan (Conception, Kamelot). And this is an incredible compliment to him. As for the rest of the music on Near Life Experience: it just makes me so excited to hear this level of depth and complexity and originality. It thrills me no end to know that there are bands out there willing to put themselves on the line and really try to create something magical, intense and, without being to flowery here, profound. Every time I listen to the disc I hear something new. The keyboards (I'm a keyboard player) are right up in the mix which brings a smile to my face. There are melodies galore sprinkled liberally throughout the 50 minute disc. The disc is fairly heavy, but not necessarily particularly crunchy in the way that Superior was crunchy on "Behind." Rather, there is a wall of sound with more than enough going on to occupy the mind for hours decoding and uncovering and just plain all out enjoying the complexity. The drumming is excellent and tastefully done, the guitars and the bass are perfectly syncopated and, near as I can tell, flawless. The music is song-oriented. This I truly appreciate. There are solos, to be sure, but they add to the overall texture of the songs. The song-writing reflects maturity and buckets of confidence. There are no tentative pieces, here. THERE IS SHEER CONFIDENCE! I admire that conviction. As far as the production, I can find relatively little fault. Perhaps the one thing that troubles me a bit is that with the added vocal effects the music sometimes feels a little too intense and, very rarely, muddled. But that is the exception that proves the rule: meaning that with music this interesting it is hard to believe that for the most part I can hear all of the instrumentation individually. In short: WOW! I am impressed. And more impressed on the fifth listen than the first. I have not heard anything this exciting since Pain of Salvation -OHBTCL. This disc comes highly recommended by me for it's intensity, melody, complexity and stark confidence! A MUST!!!

After owning the tape for a 1 1/2 years, I thought I heard and knew everything about this one .....apparently not. Obviously the disc sounds so much better, but I didn't imagine that it would sound THIS good. I will not compare this disc to previous Mayadome...yet.... However, I will say that Mayadome sound much better than they ever did, and they've come up with an excellent, true-to-the-genre, prog metal disc. The music is 100% pure, non-stop, use your head to follow, prog metal.....not for a moment does this one slow down to allow you to catch your breath.... It seems to be a more complex version of DT - without the previous sounds. It's more melodic, not as heavy, but chock full of time changes, tempo changes, and some of the best drumming this side of Power of Omens...... the singing can get a bit tedious to listen to -not because of the voice, which is great, but because of the many effects used on it. Other than that - it's excellent prog metal that will keep you wondering how a drummer can write most of this music .......

Damn, man! This CD is STILL kickin' my ass. Wow.
I am still kinda bothered by the fact that I love this disc with a passion, but just cannot get into Zero Hour or Power of Omens. All three are extremely frenetic, very technical, and quite cool in their own rights. I guess there's just a certain level of melody, harmony and consistancy in Mayadome that's missing from the other 2 discs. The Groove Factor, yet again. I doubt I'll ever get over it, simply because of the fact that not only is Mayadome so incredible, but these other bands are also obviously quite capable of making music this enjoyable. I see the talent in both ZH and PoO, but the lack of a good groove just irritates me.
But Mayadome, to get back to the real point of this post, can groove while CONSTANTLY changing tempo, they produce harmony even with semi-disharmony. This latter point is exemplified in the fact that some of Bassel's vocals are kinda wierd, and should really probably bug the crap outta me, but within the context of each song IT TOTALLY FITS! Even with the weirdest choice of notes, they still find harmony. It's really quite marvelous.And then, once again, there's the whole groove thing.
I've often found that during certain peices of music, the different musicians in PoO and ZH each seem to be playing TOTALLY different peices of music. This anti-synchopation grates on my nerves like sandpaper TP. It's an impressive feat for any musician to play something separate from everyone else and still not be incompetant, thus ZH and PoO are still impressive, just not my thing. Mayadome, on the other hand, plays a lot of really wacky stuff, changing the tempo god knows how many time in the average 7 minutes per song, but they're ALWAYS together. The harmony is there in their changing tempos, which don't really throw me off when I'm getting into the music. It kinda reminds me of some of the better tracks by Meshuggah: chaotic but still moshable.
Mayadome may be less moshable, and thus are a little more like DT, Yes, or Rush in their use of rhythm, but it's nonetheless impressive. For those of you who weren't really that excited about the 2 MP3s that were posted last week, give the CD a chance. Those 2 songs weren't the best on the CD, even though they ARE a pretty good indicator of much of the rest of the album. Restorepair is still probably my favorite, but all the other tunes STILL smoke. If you haven't already heard this CD, give it a shot. If you don't dig it, trade it so some other lucky bastard can get blown away by it! It's good stuff.

I've been away from the board a bit though caught up on most of whats been happening over the last few days. I have gotten in lots of new tunes over the past weeks. One such cd is the new one by Mayadome. Well I've been through this cd a couple of times now & this thing rocks! Top notch classy prog-metal all the way! Great progressive style songs that groove. Groove being the magic word. Great musicians throughout this band. I love the vox by new vocalist Bassel, he has a really great voice though I would love to hear his more natural voice without the processing (he doesn't need it IMO), though it doesn't hinder my enjoyment of his vox or this cd. He sorta reminds me at this early listening stage of Kahn & Stacey whats his name of Vauxdvhil. Awesome! FYI The vocalist on PA wasn't bad by any means IMO, but Bassel is just excellent & makes a much better fit I think. Teddy ...well what can I say killer drum work bro & killer disc!
Good lyrics as well something that matter to me. Kudos to Mayadome! This one of the best cds I've gotten this year. Powermad 99 is gonna kick ass!

I haven't had the opportunity to listen to these discs in their entirety as I only received them yesterday, but here goes. Mayadome "Near Life Experience" My ass is being royally kicked by this group! What a monster disc! I hear people talk about Mayadome being DT clones. I completely disagree. While there are some DT influences, this band has a sound all their own. When I first heard Bassel's voice I kept asking myself, "Where have I heard this voice before?". And after briefly reading Harv's review it clicked, Khan. I can only assume that the similarities between Khan and Bassel, while both from Scandinavian countries, could come from their possible Arabic heritage. Just a guess. It's bad enough that Teddy's drumming made me wanna keep turning up my subwoofer, but he also writes all the material! Very cool. I'll try to go a little more in depth after I get through this a couple of times.

Mayadome- " Near Life Experience" I have to admit that I wasn't a fan of "Paranormal Activity" so I didn't know what to expect. I was totally floored by what I got. Total prog metal at its finest. I really hope folks don't pigeon-hole them into a DT clone as they are not. They have surpassed everything that DT has done in the last few years. Why my sudden change of heart? Simple…Bassel. Khan does have a younger brother. Not only does his voice remind me of Conception, but the guys have developed a groove that cuts to the bone. I could have done without the processing on the vox though. I can't wait to hear it live. On a final note, they really need to do something about the drummer as he really blows goats.

Mayadome / Near Life Experience
Here are some thoughts on NLE after another week of pretty serious listening. I’ve said before that aranormal Activity was one of my favorite CDs of 1996, it captured a lot of what I love about prog metal, especially heavy, complex songs with lots of seemingly effortless time and style changes executed with astonishing musicianship. It is well-known that the singer was the weak link of the band, and the thought of the band continuing (and even improving) this direction with a stronger singer was an extremely enticing one indeed.
In many ways they did just this on NLE. Their new singer, Bassel, is much better than the guy on PA - Bassel has a warm, strong, musical voice, and a lot of shear technical ability, which I’ll get to in a minute. Believe it or not the playing is even tighter and better than PA, something you come to appreciate with more listens. The songs are, to my ears, more complex and progressive and innovative, which they’ve done with a denser, less accessible sound (which is more difficult to appreciate on the taped version - the production on the CD is superb), so it requires more attention than PA does, which in contrast pretty much jumps out and grabs you almost instantly. They’ve added odd and syncopated rhythms in places, and Bassel frequently sings, for lack of a better description, away from the natural melody of the music, adding another dimension of progginess which is extremely interesting and challenging to follow. In these ways NLE is a clear improvement over PA,
and Mayadome is moving farther away from being DT-influenced to defining their own sound. But for *my* tastes (but not necessarily for everyone else’s), NLE is not an improvement over PA in all areas. Overall they are less heavy this time out, though they still have the occasional crunch. For my tastes I’m willing to give up heaviness for beauty (Carisma, Forever Times, Eddy Antonini, Soul Cages, The Gathering) but not for
progressiveness (hence I rarely get into prog rock). Now Mayadome still have plenty of power, there is no question this is prog *metal*, but I would have preferred more heaviness, not less. Second, they have chosen
a vocal style that, for my tastes, just doesn’t suit the music well, though I know the band disagrees. Bassel kindly told me that the vocal processing is chorus, not dubbing, and the band did it intentionally to be different. Well, different it is, and it certainly may end up growing on me, but for now it adds a haziness and lack of precision to the sound that sharply contrasts with the tight, precise musicianship going on around it. I am extremely excited to hear Bassel sing at Powermad without these effects - that and a little more heaviness would make this one of the top CDs of 1999 for me.