Maudlin Of The Well
Leaving Your Body Map (Re-Issue)
Antithetic (2012)
(This excessive treatise is continued from my review of Bath)You can already tell the second album is going to be different from how it opens. Completely abandoning the soft, melodic introduction, "Stones of October's Sobbing" instead begins with an almost dissonant combination of winds and acoustic guitar which begins to build into a massive doom-laden epic, the various brass instruments lending their warmer colours to the already dark song. The following song, "Gleam in Ranks", is the only true song on either album that might be called remotely straightforward in its composition. It's a mostly standard thrash metal piece, but with much more tension from the symphonic keyboards and recurring piano melody. Interestingly, the vocals, while still aggressive, very rarely become harsh, opting instead for a few precision-placed screams and guttural melodicism to underlie some of their darkest lyrics yet.This album's epic, "Bizzare Flowers / A Violent Mist", begins with bright chiming bells accordingly melodic vocals, triumphal and epic yet retaining an unmistakable sense of sorrow. The song then becomes amibent and distant, with a black-metal based combination of moaning and screaming, slowly forming into a few loud chants, loud enough to shake the earth with their weight. The third … Read more
Maudlin Of The Well
Bath (Re-Issue)
Antithetic (2012)
I think I can tell you the exact moment my perception of music changed. It was a complete Gestalt switch, … Read more
A Whisper In The Noise
To Forget
Exile on Mainstream (2012)
The 2 piece "band" A Whisper In The Noise has been kicking around for the better part of the 2000's … Read more
1982 (Statik Selektah & Termanology)
2012
Brick\Showoff (2012)
In what makes for a numerically confusing artist/album title (and opening sentence,) 2012 is the new record by 1982—the producer/rapper … Read more
