Some (the press, the band's rabid fans, this site's webmaster) would have you believe that Maudlin of the Well is a novel, experimental and adventurous band who produces incredibly novel music.
Don't believe them.
At least on this album (and I doubt I'll subject myself to their other output to test the generality of this statement), all they deliver is a bunch of incoherent songs built from parts drawn from other bands' lesser music, package them under ludicrous titles, and affect artiste poses in the press to impress unrefined listeners with their oh-so-brilliant approach to music. But as a supposedly new artist, you know you have a problem when a less gullible listener (like yours truly) says "Ha! That bit sounded exactly like band X" every 2 minutes. "Ferocious Weights" is a lame My Dying Bride knockoff with some In The Woods warbling thrown into the pot and a plain horrible and gratuitously pseudo-random chord progression. Other songs, which I cannot bring myself to name by their simply stunningly grotesque titles (which make Solefald look positively meek by comparison), are straight out of really old Candlemass, Tiamat, The Gathering, Therion and Lacuna Coil albums. Except they suck. Hard. Not that Lacuna Coil or My Dying Bride were great prizes to begin with, but that's another story for another review. The more melodic songs sound like a blend of In The Woods outtakes with vocal lines even more meandering, incoherent and pointless than those heard on Solitude Aeturnus' early records. And on the rare occasion when someone in the band comes up with a tolerable idea, they just play that very same idea over and over for five minutes instead of trying to come up with another.
And don't get me started on the performances. In the course of the band members' musical development, everyone seemingly forgot that when the drummer goes "thwack" and the guitarist goes "strum" on the beat, they're supposed to do it at the same time. There's a big difference between missing the beat by a small fraction here and there on purpose for artistic effect and just being incompetent, and some of these guys fall squarely in the latter camp. Which is surprising, because clearly some of the other band members are quite proficient; but I certainly can't blame those who can actually play for not wanting to learn those truly awful parts for recording and leaving them to their authors instead.
What galls me most about this pitiful excuse for an artistic entrée is that a lot of time and effort was quite evidently expended on getting the album together (though most of that time was probably spent coming up with the most intensely horrid song titles and lyrics since the discovery of fire). Considering how understaffed animal shelters and oil spill cleaning crews typically are, I can only lament the fact that a dozen misguided individuals thought it was a better idea to concoct this bizarre monument to atrocity than to help kitties and penguins have better lives.
But let us not conclude on such a maudlin note. If you want to hear artists that truly push the boundaries and make great music, try Arcturus' La Masquerade Infernale, In The Woods Strange in Stereo, Mr Bungle's self-titled album, Devin Townsend, or Solefald's The Linear Scaffold. If your wishes are more modest and you just want to hear good music, hell, just about anything is better than this despicable waste of air waves.
Review by Rog The Frog Billerey-Mosier
Review date: 07/2004
http://www.ssmt-reviews.com/db/searchrev.php?artistID=710&showReview=true#R3194
Don't believe them.
At least on this album (and I doubt I'll subject myself to their other output to test the generality of this statement), all they deliver is a bunch of incoherent songs built from parts drawn from other bands' lesser music, package them under ludicrous titles, and affect artiste poses in the press to impress unrefined listeners with their oh-so-brilliant approach to music. But as a supposedly new artist, you know you have a problem when a less gullible listener (like yours truly) says "Ha! That bit sounded exactly like band X" every 2 minutes. "Ferocious Weights" is a lame My Dying Bride knockoff with some In The Woods warbling thrown into the pot and a plain horrible and gratuitously pseudo-random chord progression. Other songs, which I cannot bring myself to name by their simply stunningly grotesque titles (which make Solefald look positively meek by comparison), are straight out of really old Candlemass, Tiamat, The Gathering, Therion and Lacuna Coil albums. Except they suck. Hard. Not that Lacuna Coil or My Dying Bride were great prizes to begin with, but that's another story for another review. The more melodic songs sound like a blend of In The Woods outtakes with vocal lines even more meandering, incoherent and pointless than those heard on Solitude Aeturnus' early records. And on the rare occasion when someone in the band comes up with a tolerable idea, they just play that very same idea over and over for five minutes instead of trying to come up with another.
And don't get me started on the performances. In the course of the band members' musical development, everyone seemingly forgot that when the drummer goes "thwack" and the guitarist goes "strum" on the beat, they're supposed to do it at the same time. There's a big difference between missing the beat by a small fraction here and there on purpose for artistic effect and just being incompetent, and some of these guys fall squarely in the latter camp. Which is surprising, because clearly some of the other band members are quite proficient; but I certainly can't blame those who can actually play for not wanting to learn those truly awful parts for recording and leaving them to their authors instead.
What galls me most about this pitiful excuse for an artistic entrée is that a lot of time and effort was quite evidently expended on getting the album together (though most of that time was probably spent coming up with the most intensely horrid song titles and lyrics since the discovery of fire). Considering how understaffed animal shelters and oil spill cleaning crews typically are, I can only lament the fact that a dozen misguided individuals thought it was a better idea to concoct this bizarre monument to atrocity than to help kitties and penguins have better lives.
But let us not conclude on such a maudlin note. If you want to hear artists that truly push the boundaries and make great music, try Arcturus' La Masquerade Infernale, In The Woods Strange in Stereo, Mr Bungle's self-titled album, Devin Townsend, or Solefald's The Linear Scaffold. If your wishes are more modest and you just want to hear good music, hell, just about anything is better than this despicable waste of air waves.
Review by Rog The Frog Billerey-Mosier
Review date: 07/2004
http://www.ssmt-reviews.com/db/searchrev.php?artistID=710&showReview=true#R3194
