Märvel
Märvellous

Märvel formed in 2002 when three guys from Åtvidaberg enjoyed rocking and rolling more than studying during their high school exchange year in Colorado they got picked up by a US indie label and recorded Marvellous. The label promised that copies would be sent to them and that they would get the master tapes, but that never happened, and they never heard from the label again. They tried to get a hold of the tapes to be able to re-release the songs or at least get a listening copy, and then sadly the tapes seem to have been destroyed in the Universal Studios fire in 2008. Now they are giving these old songs a new lease on life and they are now Märvellous, something you cannot say about the cover of the four-track EP.

Stylewise they have a familiar sound, inspirations like Kiss are obvious and there isn’t much originality to be heard here. The sound is strong, and they have good energy, the songs are easy to take to and there are no complexities just straightforward rock music. There isn’t particularly much variation over the four tracks and not much depth either, but you can easily take that as the playing time is short, it is almost over before you know it. It is a solid production, unspectacular and energetic, powerful rock music.

This is a rather good one, Märvellous I would say, but not marvellous. It should work fine for those who enjoy the likes of Kiss, Grand Funk Railroad and many other bands in that same bracket. They do, however, not offer anything that feels fresh or really exciting from the creative standpoint, it feels like something we have heard before and not like listening to something for the first time. So, it could be fresher, and more original, and I think there is a hit song missing here as well – there should be one but the band does not deliver in that regard.

Novelty is a word I write a lot when I write reviews, you want something to have a sense of novelty the first time you hear it. All too many bands don’t offer that and Märvel is one of those bands. And when you don’t offer novelty you need extreme quality and they do not offer that either, so the EP tends to be good, familiar, perhaps a bit nostalgic and fairly forgettable in the end. It is a solid effort that is enjoyable to listen to but don’t expect to remember it a few months from now.

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