I have the honour of reviewing this debut album by The Mirimar Disaster, entitled This Is Where The Fight Starts. Luckily more and more bands are catching the progressive and experimental Mastodon virus, and this band seems to be fan of this new musical form as well. The band named itself after an 80ies seminal Tom Cruise homo-erotic airborne flick, as they describe it themselves, but that doesn’t sound that tough at all. The album title on the other hand, does very much.

The Mirimar Disaster hails from Sheffield, a town that already spawned rock legends Def Leppard, but also holds the band Bring Me The Horizon and one that amazed me last year with an extremely stunning and intense performance; 65daysofstatic, of which the producer also produced this album. The music they make has many faces, first of all there’s the Mastodon-like songwriting; atmospheric melodic compositions and original grooving monstrous riffs. Long stretched compositions in which tracks under five minutes are a rarity. But The Mirimar Disaster has something else up its sleeve; a lot of dramatic, long-stretched postcore material and some indie-rock influences here and there. This band sounds like a Cult Of Luna/Mastodon hybrid or something!

 

Although I don’t think all the stuff on this album kicks ass equally, I do feel like the strongest asset of the band are the real killer riffs, and I wonder why they don’t make more use of it. But on the other hand, their guitar sound isn’t all that heavy, so that wouldn’t work too great I think. But just listen to the track ‘If Lockheeds Could Speak’ and discover what I mean. Vocally there is a trio donating input, namely the drummer, one of the guitarists and a vocalist. Even here I can detect some Mastodon influences, especially with the heavy vocals. But, like with the music, not everything is as appealing as those parts.