The Appleseed Cast
Mare Vitalis

THE REVIEW

Mare Vitalis=Marine Life.

We're in the year 2000; the millennium bug didn't happen, but a disaster will occur nonetheless: the genre known as "Emo" is about to lose its melodic Indie Rock sounds to become that fringed and completely unoriginal crap that many people recognize by that term. The Appleseed Cast are a USA-based Indie Rock group formed in 1997 and are almost unknown in Italy.

After a decent debut where one can sense a desire to imitate giants like Sunny Day Real Estate and Mineral, they bring forth this "Mare Vitalis," which will become one of the last "Emocore" albums as I see it. With "Mare Vitalis," the band finds its own original sound oriented towards Post Rock, which will later become their primary genre, yet consistently creating excellent albums. The tracks have an average length between 4 and 10 minutes, entirely instrumental parts are alternated with fragile vocals that highlight the excellent melodic line of each song, predominant even in the louder moments.

A calm, tranquil, slow melody is timeless, like the sound of waves crashing on the shore driven solely by the force of a gentle night breeze, while in the depths of the ocean, a miracle occurs, a process called life is beginning which will eventually emerge from the water to conquer every corner of this planet. And while we listen to this album, we realize that water is a destructive yet indispensable and peaceful element, the waves generated by a gentle air current are enough to give us peace and make us forget our problems for at least a few dozen minutes, allowing us to turn off our brains and gifting us that moment of respite that we all need.

Then, slowly, we emerge from the water and are back here, on dry land facing everyday life, but when we can't handle it anymore, we can always load this disc onto our mp3 player/iPod and keep it within reach. And subsequent immersion.