Having heard of the name MAR DE GRISES in the past and listening to some of their older material, I wanted to listen to a full album from them and see if they have any potential. And now I have this opportunity, by reviewing the third album of the band, "Streams Inwards".

With the website of Season Of Mist down and the official site of the band having only one index page then redirect you to MySpace (I can't understand why they bother having an official website if there isn't anything there. I hope they just did that in order to make a new one), I will write down only a few basic things about the band. MAR DE GRISES literally means "sea of grays", but in a more free translation it means "sea of sorrow" since "grises" is the plural for "grey" and grey is the sorrow color in Spanish as blue is in English. But enough with those things. The band was formed in 2000 in Santiago, Chile and they have released "The Tatterdemalion Express" and "Draining the Waterheart" respectively. Their Doom Metal style got the attention of Firebox at first and now they signed a contract with Season Of Mist.

The first thing that I noticed was that in this album most of the tracks have a less than six minutes duration, to the contrary of their previous albums, were the majority of the songs were over seven minutes. But that doesn't mean anything. The music is on the same level as their previous releases. MAR DE GRISES's influences are the early days of ANATHEMA, MY DYING BRIDE and MOURNING BELOVETH. But that doesn't mean that you will listen to a simple copy of the pre-mentioned bands. From what I've listen in the past from MAR DE GRISES, "Streams Inwards" is a more digestible album than their previous releases; that doesn't mean it is a light album. All the grief and darkness that a Doom Metal fan wants are here.

So, from that kind of view, the album is very good. Nice orchestrations, the feeling is here, and MAR DE GRISES have the potential to earn a place in the first league of Doom Metal. Not that they can win the championship but they can have a good course. And of course if you are searching for something new and innovative, you are probably reading the wrong review.