“Mar de Grises is the best prog/doom/post-metal I’ve heard lately, across its hour-long running time, Draining The Waterheart is a truly beautiful and encapsulating listen, ebbing and flowing”.
This excerpt from a review by Andrew Edmund (Your Last Rites magazine) could give you a peek of what the second making of the Santiago quintet had to offer. After the release of their successful 2004 debut album ‘The Tatterdemalion Express’, which collected reviews from top-notch publications from all over the world and following their return from their first European tour in 2005, Mar de Grises continued gaining reputation as one of the leading avantgarde/doom/death bands of the scene. But before they set the foundations for new material, the band had to face the loss of their frontman Marcelo Rodríguez. Luckily, Juan Escobar joined the band shortly after and the writing process for ‘Draining the Waterheart’ (Firebox Records, 2008) thus started.
This sophomore record shows a thicker and expansive sound compared to their debut. With captivating atmospheres and oneiric passages led by keyboards and synthesizers, it’s easy to be trapped by their gloomy trance, but the inclusion of their usual slab of melancholy and epic segments keeps the music heavy enough. One can say that these Chilean proggy doomsters had maintained the core of their sound but introduced distinct layers of investigation with a view to fill that water heart.
In 2020 The Vinyl Division proudly releases Draining the Waterheart on double gatefold vinyl, with remastered vinyl audio by Jaime Gómez Arellano (Paradise Lost, Ulver, Ghost, etc.) plus an insert with detailed liner notes by former band members, fellow musicians and friends from all around the globe and a revamped artwork by Irene Serrano (Déhà, Yossi Sassi, Helevorn).
