Review Summary: Three Sides of a Tragedy from Man From The Box is an ambitious and vibrant first work, both thematically and musically.
Three Sides of a Tragedy from Man From The Box is an ambitious and vibrant first work, both thematically and musically. Drawing inspiration from the musician’s life events the six songs set, first part of a trilogy, revolves around themes of loss, violence and tragedy.
Man From The Box, the moniker of Swedish musician and producer Lukas Cartea, introduces himself to the progressive rock scene with an impressive first outing, heavily influenced from remarkable bands of the golden days of the genre.
The opening track, Was Better Before, is short but sets the mood for the rest of the album and it’s hard to listen to this two minute prelude without thinking of Pink Floyd. The music is rooted in those bygone days but without failing to engage in what is distinctly current.
Wrong Place, Wrong Time is a dark song that exhibits the artist’s skills of producing intriguing melodies. It starts off as an instrumental track with stunning guitar arrangements before his raspy voice completely changes the mood with lyrics about a knife-wielding man posing a threat.
It is followed by Unpleasantly Surprised where the vocals are delivered in an aggressive fashion and re-enforced with tremendous guitar riffs and drum pattern. The only downside for the listener is that it only lasts two minutes but don’t dwell too much on the song’s length.
Man From The Box slows things down with Last Regret, a beautiful acoustic song that brings some calm even though he confronts with the effects of heartbreak.
The instrumentation on Vanishing is a testament of Lukas Cartea’s credentials as an accomplished musician who has not succumbed to the pretention and overindulgence that are too common in the genre. Man from The Box has set the bar high with Three Sides of a Tragedy I and for those who fell under its 70s inspired, yet modern spell it will be interesting to see his return this year with the follow-up.
