I’m not a musician. I’m just a fan. When I watch a play-through video, I’m not capable of critiquing the fine points of a performance, especially a drummer’s performance, because almost all drummers amaze me. Having made that confession, I’m now going to offer a few thoughts about Morgan Berthet’s drum play-through for “Abyss”, a song by his band The Mars Chronicles.
There are times in the play-through when what he’s doing looks simple — and then he’ll twirl a drumstick through his fingers in mid-beat so fast that you wonder if you really saw it. Those drum twirls having nothing to do with the sound on the song, but they’re still really impressive. The actually drumming is impressive, too.
This isn’t the kind of extreme metal drumming that’s got the foot on the gas from start to finish, though when Berthet does explode in brief bursts throughout the song, he’s really fast. And even when he’s not hitting things in a blur of speed, he’s interesting to watch because he’s often running in counterpoint to the rhythms of the riffs. Also, he looks like he was dusted in flour. And his eyes don’t look human.
The song as a whole has grown on me the more I’ve watched the video, even though it’s slightly outside the usual range of my tastes; it is, for example, an exception to our Rule. It reminds me a bit of the Dutch band Textures. “Abyss” comes from The Mars Chronicles’ self-titled debut EP, and I’m including s stream of that below. The video is really well filmed and edited. Hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
https://www.facebook.com/themarschronicles.theband
3 Responses to “MORGAN BERTHET (THE MARS CHRONICLES): “ABYSS””
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I like these guys.
It took me a while to actually discern for sure whether he was, in fact, twirling his sticks. Also, in pretty sure his legs and arms act from separate brains or something, ’cause they were definitey operating on completely different rhythms a fee times. Impressive, to say the least.
i love playthrough videos, even if it’s an artist whose album i might not have any intention of buying. just watching a long fixed shot of a talented musician performing an entire song is fascinating to me. hell, i’ll even admit that i like to watch videos of myself sitting in a chair playing, just because i never see my hands at work from that angle and they always seem much faster and more impressive when seen that way.
i’m not sure which kind of playthrough videos i like more, guitar/bass or drums. all three are just so damn cool to watch.