Music Review: Mark Maze – ‘Uncomfortable Truths’

The United Kingdom is now offering us Mark Maze, who pours his London attitude in this full album of pop, electric, pop rock, and R&B hybrids that speak mostly of heartbreak and individualism. This makes for particularly insightful lyrics in most of the songs in Uncomfortable Truths that could make for very interesting individual musings set in the three types of songs Maze has to offer.

There are the bouncy, upbeat, dance-like tracks. The electronic elements also give a certain dance vibe to “2nd Best”, but the slower parts of this song would not make it a good party anthem. The contrast between Maze’s soft vocals and the dance-imbibed elements works quite well, and makes this a very radio-friendly song.

One barely has time to be surprised by the electric guitar that opens “Get Gone” before an upbeat clapping-driven tempo takes over and makes this song somewhat anthemic. The electric guitar gives the track the right attitude for the subject matter: getting closure over a bad relationship, asking the other person to “get gone” already.

“Crazy” also features guitars, but, especially accompanied as they are by drums, they give the track the pop rock vibe a song about driving someone who irritates you crazy would. It would work well as the soundtrack for a high school movie or television episode featuring a mutually irritating relationship. It would also do well as an afternoon pick-me-up song.

There are also slower, ballad-like songs. “Your Bite Was Beautiful” is the first of these. While missing an ex-girlfriend, Maze goes over the reasons why he had to break up with her in the first place. The song is poignant; it wasn’t an angry, pain-riddled pointing of the finger at the other as the sole reason for the breakup. Rather, it weaves in his pain at missing her with the fact that the relationship wasn’t a healthy one. I found it quite refreshing of a take on the breakup song.

The clear piano and the muffled electronic keyboards that kick off “Crying Game” offer an interesting contrast between clarity and confusion that is taken up lyrically as well by Maze in this track about a person struggling between hiding their pain from the world, starting with a loveless childhood. The subject of holding in pain and not sharing emotion is also taken up in “Robot Eyes”, although this time it is set in the contest of a relationship. Like so many other tracks on this album, the melody matches both the title and the lyrics of the song well; the electronic beat of the song reflects the concept of an individual with “robot eyes” that do not emote.

The lone hybrid, “The Devil May Cry”, starts as a simple piano accompanying Maze’s vocals; about a third way through, upbeat electronic elements kick in, turning it into a dance song. The transition is done in a way that isn’t jarring to the listener, which is quite a feat, seeing the difference between the first and second portions of the song.

Uncomfortable Truths offers some great radio-friendly tracks as well as a couple of anthemic ones. Most of the tunes are sticky, and many of them are quite catchy. If he continues marrying insightful lyrics with such melodies, Mark Maze is set for great things. More information is available on his official website. Music is available for streaming on SoundCloud; video clips can be watched on his YouTube channel.

Pictures provided by Independent Music Promotions.

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