Album Review: "Stalemate Guards for Defiant Hearts" by Masha

"Stalemate Guards for Defiant Hearts" is the first album by local alternative rock band "Masha", set to be launched on Nov.7, 2014 at the B-Side Collective, Makati City.

The 10-track album presents songs, each with their own character...with words, sounds and grooves imbued with energy, intense emotion, paced like a story being told by a close friend sharing their closest secrets and thoughts.

It also helps that scattered within the songs are various hooks that makes you want to listen to it again and again. I know I did.

Aside from their previously released singles "Satellites" (my all time fave track) and "Cyanide", the band displays their musical and lyrical prowess through experimentation and playful arrangements, word play, and the like...never a dull moment.

Songs like "Ang Naghihintay sa Akin" and "Sa Paglalayag" are powerful rock-ballad inspired pieces that dabble into the heavier, melancholic spectrum of emotions. But hold on to your bleeding hearts, because there is the more heavier, more emotional "Kundiman", which I foresee to be the next anthem for the broken-hearted souls. And a seemingly 'western drama'-ish inspired "Stalemate Guards For Defiant Hearts", their title track, which seems to act like a prelude to the story of the whole album which is about to unfold to the listener.

These are balanced with some catchy, a-bit-lightly arranged songs like "Dirty Bones", "Alas Singko", reminiscent of the good old 90's pinoy rock with a more modern outlook.

Then there's the reggae-rock groove of "Keep an Open Eye", which they claim to be of a more happier tone, but still keeps that serious storey-telling tone.

And the more dynamic "Your Shame", whose arrangements and climaxes reminds me of the works by the Japanese band L'Arc n Ciel.

This is a definite "must not miss" for all you music lovers out there, and don't forget to come and join the fun at their album launch.