Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation - Spastic ink and Spiral Architect

MAUDLIN OF THE WELL
Bath
http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD.asp?cd_id=8356 - http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD. asp?cd_id=8356

MAUDLIN OF THE WELL Bath
Review ( http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=41449 - Permanent link ) by http://www.progarchives.com/Collaborators.asp?id=27 - Bryan Adair @ 3:28:59 PM EST, 8/3/2005
SPECIAL COLLABORATION

— Never has the term "masterpiece of progressive music" been so applicable.

Maudlin of the Well is truly one of modern music's most creative bands. Not creative in the all-out, over the top RIO kind of way, nor in the drugged out, noisy krautrock kind of way. MotW are essentially a metal band, but if you're the type of person who has an allergic reaction to prog-metal then you need not worry. Bath is the more melodic counterpart to its heavier "companion" album Leaving Your Body Map, and makes a point to shatter every imaginable convention in metal. This collective of musicians from Boston has taken both prog and metal into realms unseen with this album, which is why it's an essential part of any prog collection. Sadly, that's also why it's forever doomed to remain an obscure release by an unknown band.

Trying to describe the actual music contained on Bath could easily take up the entire length of this review. The band has an uncanny ability to shift from dreamlike space-rock to crushing death metal right back to melodic acoustic muisc, sometimes all in one song. This makes Bath an unpredictable listen, as you never know what direction the music will turn to next. Alongside the more conventional prog instruments, the band also utilizes the kind of instruments you wouldn't expect from a prog-metal band. Everything from trumpet to flute can be heard in Maudlin of the Well's music, not to mention acoustic guitar and clean vocals more delicate than you'd ever expect from a metal band.

If you enter this album with the expectation of continually rocking out (as I admittedly did, to an extent), the 8 minute opening track will, to say the very least, throw you off. Opening with a lone guitar part that sounds like the intro to Yes' "Roundabout" put into an ambient setting, this one sparse guitar is eventually joined by an acoustic guitar and a horn instrument. Eventually the track's main theme is introduced by the acoustic guitar, before it fades back into silence. The band returns a few seconds later continuing the delicate sound. Eventually the main theme is reprised, putting the listener into a hypnotized state. Yet as the track winds down, an electric guitar joins in and the song promptly fades out. There is no possible way that the band could have devised a better introduction to the album, preparing the listener for the journey ahed.

"They Aren't All Beautiful" starts off as a fairly conventional metal song, death growls and all. It's not until a freakout about 1:20 in that the song really gets going, as the pace is suddenly slowed down for a massive riff. It's also here that things start to get more technical, with a stop-start section entering, given an exclamation point by a strange yet somehow extremely catchy repeating guitar riff. The song then launches into a heavy instrumental section, after which the song appears to be over. The initial theme is then reprised briefly for a viscious ending.

Every remaining song on the album leans towards one of those two styles, rarely staying entirely with one. That said, by the time the slow, dramatic third track "Heaven and Weak" kicks in, the album's cosmic mood and hypnotic feel will surely have gotten to you. Very few albums are able to induce the trace-like state that Bath will leave you in, but somehow despite the heavy guitar riffs that emerge throughout it, it's difficult not to be completely drawn into the music presented, which in my opinion is Bath's finest attribute. Both the harder rocking songs ("The Ferryman", which contains an organ of all instruments, the soaring prog-metal epic "Birth Pains of Astral Projection") and the more melodic ones (" Marid's Gift of Art", "Geography") are flawlessly executed and brilliantly composed, leaving Bath without anything even remotely resembling a weak moment. When they try to be loud and agressive, MotW do it phenomenally, when they want to be melodic and sentimental, they're liable to break your heart with their music (which I mean in the best way possible).

If you're prepared to be challenged by your prog diet, yet at the same time want something completely listenable, Maudlin of the Well is for you. DO NOT let the prog-metal tag scare you off, this is as progressive as progressive rock can be, and to dismiss it on the basis of a few heavier parts will be the biggest mistake you ever make as a prog listener. It's not often that I'm prepared to consider an album among my favorites of all time less than a week after first hearing it (in fact, this may very well be the soonest I've ever fallen so deeply in love with an album), but I have to make an exception for Bath. Sadly, it's been discontinued, so finding a copy could prove challenging, but if you take my advice on one thing this year, make it this album. That said, if you're more of a metalhead than a proghead and just want something you can headbang to, don't bother. Even when this is heavy, it's far from headbanging music, and VERY far from any other metal band.