Album Review: Hot Source

The Mara have been busy creating sonic mischief and bending genres from their base in Ngāmotu, which has resulted in the release of their debut album, Hot Source. The last couple of years have seen them building on their presence in the scene, and they’ve entertained crowds supporting artists like Summer Thieves, SOJ0URN, Flaxxies, and TheSlacks, and with high-profile events and festival performances. Hot Source is the culmination of hours of passion, dedication, and shared vision.

Three More Hours gets the album underway, a bold and brash tale of brand-new romance, youthful and fervent. A subdued and lightly stepping guitar line bubbles up from the musical aether, belying the energy to come from the pumped up funking of this sultry rocker. This song is all party for four solid minutes. The Mara are clearly a force to be reckoned with, tasty and super talented, and all the chops are on display here, but hold on to your hats because things have barely even begun.

Track two is Music In Your Life, and how could things possibly be any other way when you’ve got this in your earholes? Wah pedal artfully applied, the guitar again kicks off the track, introducing a song dripping with soul and a bass line to die for. All of New Zealand’s summer festivals need this song, at the very least it will likely be on high rotate at countless summer evening BBQ sessions throughout the country. Did You Believe? has another deceptively gentle guitar intro, leading the way into a groove-filled dancefloor filler, sporting lush vocal harmonies and saucy splashes of brass.

This brings us to Mr. Professor Man, inspired by frontman Jordan Jones’ experiences of growing up with ADHD, and trying to navigate the conformist demands of the school system, a song that celebrates individuality. Fittingly, this track has a uniquely different flavour to its predecessors, Gypsy-jazz infused ska with contrasting slabs of heavy guitar, an accordion riotously tying the whole together. This is your favourite new song you haven’t heard yet. Outrageously good.

There’s almost a franticness to the driving pace of the smokily exotic Didn’t Foresee Today. This would be a hell of a song to experience live, the frenetic verses give way to a bombastic chorus guaranteed to whip an audience into an adoring throng. With Love, It Finds Me, one could be forgiven for imagining that this was written in 1980’s U.K., there’s a deliciously Pretenders-like vibe coming from this catchy banger. Midway through it’s a different story, a crooning moment before a fast-paced guitar solo.

I’ve Been Hurt Too Many Times tips its hat to that same glorious gypsy-fueled Ska, that then erupts into something much greater in the choruses, and also boasts a thoroughly shred-tastic guitar solo. What a magnificent band, highly skilled songwriters and players, a powerfully good time of a song. Lastly, we have Jimmy’s Love Song, a distinctly un-love-song sounding song. The intro brings to mind a haunted carousel in an infernal amusement park, a stilted and creepy air, with eerie vocals. It gives the sense that whatever is about to happen, it isn’t going to be pleasant for someone out there. At the halfway point, it explodes into a Ska-riffic frenzy, before returning to Satan’s Circus where they strap big, heavy boots onto the riff, and after giving things a good stomping, it’s a Green Jelly styled, brass-laden Metal rifforama to finish.

Hot Source is an album of eclectically diverse influences, coming together to create a wondrously rich and headily vibrant sound. This album is as upbeat and joyous as it gets, a true celebration of music, love, and life itself.