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Maudlin Of The Well - Bath CD (album) cover

BATH

Maudlin Of The Well

 

Experimental/Post Metal

4.19 | 351 ratings

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chamberry
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
4 stars Ah! My favorite maudlin of the Well album. Gentle soft and full blown death metal (?)

This album showcases the soft side of maudlin of the Well better than Leaving your body map. It still carries the same method used by them and it's still a very heavy album with fast drumming and guitar playing with growling vocals and overall unpredictable. So hold on, sit tight and enjoy the music however you can because this will be one hell of a ride full of extremely gentel melodic songs and Over the top death metal.

Again, the first song on the album represents most of the style of the album. While Leaving your body map started with a bang, this one is more laid back instrumental with atmospheric guitar playing, soft trumpet play and acoustic guitars and at the end all of those instruments makes a very enjoyable soft song mix perfectly. Little by little the songs starts to build up adding drums and other instruments until it blows with the same guitar riff but now with distortion and another guitar in the back and with that the song ends. Yet the second song is completly different wich is mainly a death metal song with growling vocals and Toby Driver screaming with all that he's got. A very pompous and angry song recommended to keep your adrenaline flowing.

By the start of the third song you'll clearly noticed the difference between Leaving your body map. Soft acoustic guitars,more use of the violins and wind instruments and the soft voice of Toby Driver's clean voice even at the hardest parts of the song are the clear differences. Another great thing of this album is the better use of the female vocalist, Maria-Stella Fountoulakis. She shines in the songs even if she's singing in an operatic way like in The Ferryman or soft and nice like in Girl with a watering can. The atmosphere is less doomier and more like in a pastoral field with a garden scene with a sepia overtone. (get the view?). The songs also blend a little better making the transitions between soft and hard flow nicer. A nice thing about this album that I like is the strange use of . . . water. On gentle songs like Interlude 2 its used like any normal instruments slaping their hands and making a very nice rythim carried by the bass and some piano playing.

In conclusion, This is a more mellow album with more varied use of instruments, more accesible and the essential album of maudlin of the Well by my point of view although the other is strong contender too. If you're looking for the soft MOTW get this one, but if ou're looking for a harder MOTW then go and get Leaving Your Body Map.

4.3/5

chamberry | 4/5 |

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