Any band that blends a love of science fiction and psychedelia is right up The Third Eye’s alley. That’s why I was excited when a band called Maragda was recommended to me by Jesse Kooker from Dingir Zu.
Maragda comes to us from Barcelona, Spain, and released its debut self-titled album in 2021. They recently dropped two new live singles on June 2, 2023, “The Reckless” and “Evil Seed.” Their self-titled debut album was a concept record that goes to great lengths to tell a story of a civilization that takes refuge underground after a “Great Disaster.”
Many years pass, and the memory of life on Earth fades while people live under the oppression of a totalitarian government. Things change when a strange voice speaks inside peoples’ minds, and a group of rebels launches a journey through “The Unknown” to discover the secrets of Maragda. There’s a lot more to the story, so I suggest you check out the album and an interview they gave here that explains the concept more.
Concept albums like this are super cool, especially when they tell full, narrative fiction stories that read like novels. Of course, it wouldn’t be worth anything unless the music was good, too, but we don’t have to worry about that with Maragda. The self-titled debut shows the promise and skills of the three musicians comprising the band as they experiment with sounds similar to bands like Motorpsycho and add the heavy psychedelic touches of acts like Earthless and SLIFT.
The band says describing their style is difficult because it blends elements from many rock genres. They summarize it mainly through distortion, fuzz, delay, and reverberated vocals. Maragda brings an eclectic sound of stoner rock, psych rock, neo-psych, progressive rock, and plenty of garage rock grooves to the table. The new singles continue along the same path they charted in their 2021 self-titled debut and are a treat for psych rock fans.
“The Reckless” clocks in at nearly five minutes of heavy psych with thunderous drumming, excellent guitar playing, and high-octane energy. “Evil Seed” brings an equal amount of frenetic energy and pacing, seamlessly starting from the previous track. This one has more atmospherics, and the droning, chanting vocals bring a sound similar to the aforementioned SLIFT.
I’m glad Jesse Kooker told me about Maragda because this is a band to watch in the underground psych scene. I’m unsure if these new singles point to another album soon, but I hope they do. They’re another excellent psych band from a European scene that’s usually teeming with talent and brings a distinctive slant to the genre. Check out the new singles and the self-titled debut album and get lost in their fantastical science-fiction concepts, heavy-duty riffs, and psychedelic, trance-inducing grooves.
Support Maragda by finding them on Bandcamp or social media (Instagram, Facebook).
Parting words: “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” – Albert Camus
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