BATH

A masterpiece of progressive rock certainly is NOT an applicable term to use for this album. Sure it is full of some great tunes but it is a conceptual nightmare which is a big problem for this album. The majority of people who listen to this interesting album are probably only likely to be able to enjoy half of this album. This is an album crafted out of two extremes, mellow, acoustic space rock with gentle vocals, and extreme heavy metal. Now this may remind you of Opeth but Maudlin do it in a way that does not sound balanced and organised. For instance, the first track is a brilliant 7 minute intro of acoustic guitars and spacey textures. This then randomly veers of course into a speedy, heavy track with growling vocals. And the album is always quirky like that. This is a statement of avant garde, but that's not a complete excuse for this unpredicatable nightmare.

So for those metal fans who don't like space rock or acoustic work, they will only find about half of this album any good. And for those fans who love their acoustic and space rock, but detest extreme metal, their listening experience is likely to be ruined by the unessecary heavy parts of this album.

An album made of two musical extreme's like this makes it hard to categorise this band. Space metal is as accurate as you can get. These two opposite mellow and aggressive influences are not at all parallel with each other on this album and it makes for difficult listening. It has also pushed Maudlin of the Well into obscurity and could perhaps be a reason for them splitting up.

Each individual piece is very good, you get space rock ("The Blue Ghost"), symphonic prog ("The Ferryman"), acoustic songs, (most of "Heaven and a Weak") and extreme metal tunes ("They Aren't All Beautiful"), yet I happen to like all these different types of music, still I admit that having all these different subgenres do not go well with each other. Maudlin of the Well have alienated themselves from both space prog and extreme heavy metal.

Overally, "Bath" displays some good indvidual pieces, but as an album, it's concept is tackily put together and has a high chance of putting people off with its opposing forces of music.

Approach with much caution!