Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land - Marina: Review
MARINA
is the recently adapted moniker of Marina Diamandis who started off her career with three albums under the Marina And The Diamonds name. After a pair of critically acclaimed albums to start off her career as a tumblr-core pop sensation she released her 3rd album to mixed reviews in 2015. After a long break she had a name change and a new record in 2019 with the two part Love + Fear release which was met with largescale critical pushback and only moderate commercial success.
Review By Lav:
Marina was one of the first pop starts whose meteoric rise I got to witness first hand as track after track from her debut and sophomore albums became the backing to "just girly things" tumblr posts and early aesthetic twitter accounts, both of which were a part of my media diet. I was less excited to see Marina turn in a much less interesting direction with the colorful but not very flavorful Froot. Though that was nothing compared to the disappointment of her "comeback" record, the incredibly tepid and forgettable Love + Fear two years ago. Thankfully this era got off to a great start and kept it up with once exciting single after another. While the full tracklist fails to live up to this level of consistency I see this as Marina's real comeback album and the closest to achieving the unique vision of her earliest projects, since those very projects.
I really can't express how good I think the first four singles are, and they fittingly serve as the first four songs on the album. Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land is like a thesis statement for the album which makes sense given it's the title track and opener. Marina is going big picture lyrically taking a look at human history as well as the idea of self and an individuals place in the cosmos. For a song with such grand thematic ambitions it is slick and incredibly catchy. I love the multi-tracked keys all over the song that crash into the track and soak their way out repeatedly. The wordy hook is impressively catchy and I just can't really enjoy the song any more than I do. Venus Fly Trap is up next and it's a total throwback to Electra Heart era Marina both in the dramatic way she interpolates her own perspective into the track as well as its lavish, exciting instrumental palette. Once again the hook on here is absolutely dynamic and while the song is short it packs every moment of its runtime with energy as it flies through its composition expertly.
Man's World was a fantastic single that I called one of my favorite of last year and I still love it. It was the first taste we got of Marina's ability on the record to seamlessly interpolate politics with a level of nuance that is worth noting, while maintaining the incredibly catchy songwriting that is so easy to listen to. Her performance is confident and the songs piano led instrumental continues to connect with me on repeat listens. Purge The Poison is a song I saw on social media described as We Didn't Start The Fire for 2021 and I can't imagine a better description. It fires off political and social events that have shaped out perception of culture one after another in a way that is certainly less novel than Fire. The refrains are catchy and the performance is stable given how wordy it is. The bridge is the only moment on the song I don't love but outside of that I think Marina hit it out of the park again.
While the fall off in quality of songs comes immediately after the records first four tracks and stays throughout the rest of the record, there are still a few more solid tracks to be found. Pandora's Box is the best of them and the records first ballad that I really enjoy. I think it works its early minimalism really well and develops the track into a soaring and impactful second half. I also like some of these slight ambiguities in the lyrical content that flips a classic cheater store into a new perspective as Marina contemplates some of the difficult emotional impact it's had on her. I wouldn't call the song catchy but it is certainly compelling. Goodbye is the closing track and the longest here even though it really doesn't need to be. While it feels like a greatly cathartic moment and features a few of my favorite lyrics on the entire album, instrumentally it is doing very little of anything for most of its runtime. It has flashes here and there but Marina is clearly meant to be the focus and in that role she is at least shining. The hook is solid and she delivers a versatile occasionally harrowing performance. It's a song that is almost a spectacular conclusion but doesn't go far enough with an instrumental that is inexplicably minimal.
I Love You But I Love Me More is fittingly enough a post-break up song which certainly adds some context to earlier tracks. It's kind of like a piano rock song with driving percussion alongside its keys and the occasional wailing guitar. While it all manifests a certainly matureness about the song I don't think it comes off as hard-hitting as Marina may have hoped with the level of excitement coming nowhere near the first four songs. One of the most interesting facets of the song is that it manages to fit in 5 choruses which tells me they really liked the hook, for some reason. Flowers is a decent track with some major mixed priorities in the first half. The quiet piano ballad is gentle but Marina's vocals never even near the same level of relaxed. Maybe it has to do with the serious nature of the ongoing relationship inspiring many of the songs in the second half. I will say that as the song goes on Marina and the instrumental do start to find a bit more common ground and the track is much improved, with the final hook in particular translating very well.
Highly Emotional People is the first ballad on the album and it is a HARD transition from the singles. The vocals are frequently a dead ringer for Lana which certainly isn't a bad thing she is a great contemporary to borrow from and Marina does a good job of it. The songwriting is really the tracks downfall and it does a really bad job of building up to anything on its hook. In fact with the instrumental drop out I think you could argue that there are sections of the song that are far more impactful than what is supposed to be the grand hook. New America is definitely the weakest song here which is a shame because I feel like its close to being good. It starts off like it might be the fabled 5th banger on the album but never lives up to it. While I do think Marina makes some worthwhile lyrical points on the song while also executing a bluntness that is effective, it is all in service to a tune that does very little for me. Once again on this track the hook is super deflating coming out of the bridge and verse in an incredibly limp way and not having a hint of the catchy energy that the record kicks off with.
Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land gets off to a ridiculously good start, but after that the quality and consistency of the record varies drastically. Thankfully there is only a couple of true duds and plenty of redeeming factors littering songs I may not have otherwise saw anything in. Given how short the record is I really wish it was more consistent throughout and the order of these tracks aren't doing the album any favors. Despite all these shortcomings I can't deny that there is a lot more here I enjoy than don't and that on the first half of the record when Marina hits, she's hitting out of the park. 7/10
This cover is awesome. The styling, text and editing all come together to make an enticing image. Marina really makes the priority herself in this cover, literally. Even though it looks great at first glance, after I look into it there are a few things I would change. The overwhelming vertical blue lines on the left side of the background don't make a very balanced image and everything feels heavier on the left side. I would have also done something with the center where her corset is the main focus instead of directing us to either the text or her face. The title could be moved up or flowers utilized to fill the space. Even though it has these particular shortcomings it still is a great cover to look at. 8.5/10
For more pop check out my review of Slayyyter's Troubled Paradise here
