MESMERE: Press/Reviews

Album Review - An Overlong Welcome
The long hello

Suave modern rock fraught with jazz and tinged with subtlety, the debut longplayer from Brisbane-based 5 piece Mesmere, An Overlong Welcome is an ethereal exploration of texture and dynamics.

From the dangerously evocative ‘Corridors' through to riff heavy closer ‘The Finalist’ Mesmere bear an innate ability to construct off the cuff almost leeringly effective melodies whilst maintaining a deceivingly even musical flow. The rhythm guitar in particular reliably offering a succinct counter approach to what could easily be plunked out in paint to numbers manner. Track # 2, the Daniel Jones (Savage Garden) produced ‘Keepsakes’ hums along with enough pizzazz to stick where it ought to and enough flutter to suspend itself artfully.

Lingering tastes here are reminiscent of a Portishead styled tendency towards soundscape coupled with Evanescence like vocal sustenance and Mesmere's own musical transgression thereof. An Overlong Welcome chimes where it should and punishes appropriately.

Ok lets get his taken care of right away. Those hands on the album cover give me the creeps. Are they armless? And what are they pressing against? Are they trying to get out? *shudder

The music is also a tad creepy but nothing like those hands.

Mesmere is an Australian band that used to go by the name Mosaic. They chose Mesmere for their new name as it is derived from the word mesmerize. The band is: Maryanne Stewart (Vocals), Lewis Benbow (Guitars), Jamie Burrows (Bass), Matt Tucker (Drums) and Jeremy Wellard (Guitars)

The songs are pretty and even eerie at times. I like the use of dissonant chords and the vocals are haunting.

Its somewhere between rock and ambient I'd say. A little more hard than your average shoegazer fare. But not quite Evanescence.

Maryanne Stewart has a nice strong voice that soars on these songs. The musicianship is also very professional and tight sounding.

This is a really nice record for fans of rock that has a dreamy twist.

Stand out songs: " The Last Of Her Blue Eyes" and "Saturnalia" are great. "Posthumous" stands out because it doesn't feel to me like it belongs. Still cool, just different.

Australian rockers Mesmere hope to reach American audiences and indeed reach out to the entire world with their new album “An Overlong Welcome”. Their old moniker was Mosaic and used by several other groups worldwide. Culling their name from the word ‘mesmerize’, Mesmere focused their energy on crafting an album that will haunt and live up to the band’s name. They’ve succeeded on a high level!

Live Review - Mesmere / Redbreast / Holocene / Maudlin

The Globe Sat June 24

Tonight was my first sojourn to The Globe and its reputation for grungy
old school cool preceded it.

First up, five-piece Maudlin's set was an
oft confusing, sporadically interesting hybrid of sound that could
likely be recreated at home by playing any Bjork or Portishead albums in
unison. Next, heavy rockers Holocene did a commendable job of filling
the venue (and subsequently emptying it again at the end of their set) with consistently tight, Tool-esque guitar work and lead solos that made you want to grow your hair, rock squat repeatedly and punch out the hippy who was dancing like it was San Francisco c.1960 at the front. Redbreast followed, playing to the baker's dozen of friends who had
assembled, and despite horrendous sound issues, cranked out some melancholy corkers, showing their true colours in a haunting, Scottish
Air-style ballad featuring a tremendous trombone line.

Lastly, fronted
by powerful Evanescence-style vocals, Mesmere offered their trademark,
heavily textured sound, interlacing guitar
trickery with emotive, soaring melodies and a solid rock bass, producing
a sound that was unmistakably 'Mesmere' and at times mesmerising.

4ZZZ interview of Maryanne, Jeremy and Lewis from Mosaic, and airplay of tracks from thier EP "A Plague of Angels".

Today we were interviewed and performed live on "Citrus".

The 'Transpire' Compilation CD was launched today, at the the Waterloo Hotel, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. This was a huge night, showing off some great local bands.

Fans of local groove merchants Mosaic will be pleased to hear that the band’s debut LP An Overlong Welcome is on the way. The finishing touches are being added at Meridien Musik, owned and operated by local legend Daniel Jones. The ex-Savage Garden guitarist also produced and mixed the album. Expect to hear the same rock/jazz fusion that you’ve come to love from one of Brisbane’s more original acts when they preview the new album during an intimate gig at Tongue and Groove Saturday Jan 21.

Segment from Interview for Rave Magazine Nov 2004:
The thing I like about the EP ["A Plague of Angels"] is the way you blend genres together. There's often bits of jazz, funk rock and pop all coexisting happily in the same song. Did you deliberately set out to do this? Is it hard to achieve a seamless blend of these elements?

Mosaic: On one level the blurring of genres was a natural step for us – we all have strong ties to jazz and a love of the improvisational side to the music. We look on music as an artform and inherent in this is the need to find new ways to express ideas. We have a collective dislike for recent trends of regurgitating old “safe” ideas and therefore we are always looking for new avenues to explore. We don’t consciously approach our songwriting by genre, more so by the feel that is needed to best convey the idea. As you said, the most important thing is finding different ideas/feels that can still coexist within one song and ensuring that every part of a song is contributing to making it stronger.