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Rating: Listening to them for the first time might be unsettling, listening to them for the second time would make them particularly enjoyable, and from the third time on, you fall in love and there’s nothing you can do about it, because, as we know, the heart wants what it wants, and perhaps it is precisely the heart that is the core of an album like "Leaving Your Body Map" by Maudlin Of The Well, an avant-garde band from Boston, USA.
Describing the feelings you can experience in front of such a work is particularly difficult, perhaps due to its colorful nature, but also thanks to its ability to touch your soul in the deepest way, whether it's because the album manages to be sweet and atmospheric while at the same time sad and violent, almost obsessive, but also because in one single track these fantastic musicians are capable of transitioning from jazz/progressive atmospheres to real death metal outbursts that will take your breath away (almost like when you slam the accelerator in a car and you're catapulted against the back of the seat).
The meticulous work of the band in creating rarefied and refined atmospheres capable, as mentioned, of spanning different genres, is immediately evident in the opening track "Stones Of October’s Sobbing", which after a slow start (which brought to mind our own Perigeo) then transforms into an extremely violent death metal song, with a very deep growl, which, despite being almost in complete contrast with some melodic solutions (melody that always remains in the foreground) manages in its own way to please the listener.
Then there's the splendid "Bizarre Flowers – A Violent Mist", a chameleonic track capable of shifting from extremely atmospheric moments to darker ones, yet always remaining of great taste. The elegance of the first part of the song comes out thanks to a skillful mix of classic rock music elements, such as guitars, bass, and drums, but also because it often resorts to various atmospheric elements such as the echo of bell sounds. The other tracks continuously fluctuate between violent pieces like the pair "Riseth He, The Numberless part I and II" and more delicate moments that culminate in the five minutes and thirty-seven seconds of "Sleep Is A Curse", truly moving in its slow and dreamy pace. Needless to say, the instrumental performance of each individual musician is really top-notch, ranging from almost Pink Floyd-like and progressive moments to others more strictly metal.
A masterpiece indeed, worthy of being included among the best experimental records in the metallic field from 2001 to today.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Gleam in Ranks (04:16)
A walk to Heaven isn't any better
With legions' fresh ascent
First they dwindled like always
And then I regretted closing my eyes
See, this dream was not inevitable
In the war of reds and golds
Our hero was gold!
Anon, with each pronunciation
Banners were smouldering, then dying
And burning my intestines
Taking away, alas,
All that kept me alive
Hast thou not crept up upon me?
Cruel poison of Life!
Thou hast taken everything.
But what hurts me is that
You've slobbered filthily
O'er the delicate lips of a delicate girl
And I shall announce what you are...
Yes, away thou goest
Into the desert betwixt blue angels
Choose thy canon and execute
Never is the morning of thy age!
06 Sleep Is a Curse (05:37)
Life means more since I stopped thinking
Life means more because you keep me going
I dreamed that we had another moment, still
We could be the champions of art
I killed myself because I was stupid
Great things come, but only as a blessing
It took so long because nobody told me
The Son of God is nothing more than this
I think I have it, I'm an angel
Humbled as such to learn from you
the truth of Life is never spoken
And sleep hasn't ever done me any good yet
Sleep is a curse
Remember that moment the music led
our dying minds to Heaven?
The promises of Life are tragic
The one for me will never have those things
That night, the forest was seething
So many things, but her face was all I saw
You're so good, your face is all I see.
I think I have it, I'm an angel
Humbled as such to learn from you
The truth of Life is never spoken
And sleep hasn't ever done me any good yet
10 Monstrously Low Tide (06:46)
What upon the naked shore is this key?
All briny, yes, a haven for the briny things,
And a mystery to the sun which hasn't seen
The construction of this awful mystery!
What fashion'd thee, O key of slimy gold?
What secret portal among the waves and stones
Didst thou unlock in silence of the deep?
And most importantly, what sea-borne lazy eye,
Deceived by the broken light,
Lost among the ruins thee?
I saw the shore expand on that joyous day-
Breathed deeper, pulsed longer, sighed fuller,
Loved greater the mind of a curious boy,
Such as me!
I love thee, curious sea!
{Aeons can hide the relics of forgotten gods,
But showeth me thy treasures,}
And I will always look thereon.
I will always look with love thereon!
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By wwwhatemoornet1
Maudlin Of The Well have the ability to put something in their music that you will never find anywhere else: the grotesque.
A landscape could be a sunny summer day where the sun beats on a stream of still and muddy water or above a fresh concrete flow.
