| CD REVIEW Maudlin |
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Band : Maudlin This Belgian Psychedelic Sludge Core band (which claims to take musical influences from "...many bottles of Scotch, Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd for the song structure, Led Zeppelin for the sound, Neurosis for the hardness, and Cult Of Luna for the layers...") was formed in late November 2004, and its line-up currently includes singer Davy de Schooder, guitarist/ backing vocalist Jasper Bullinck, guitarist Kris Vanecke, keyboardist/ samples man & backing singer Tom Gyselbrecht, bassist Thijs Goethals, and drummer Davy Vanden Broecke (also active with Sunpower from Opwijk, and possibly at that time doing his studies in Gent, which is called as one of the basis towns for the band, alongside Bredene and Knokke-Heist - the latter both coastal towns). After two months of rehearsals, the guys already did their first gig, and during the 6 months after that live debut the guys were playing somewhere every single week, increasing their fanbase with each show, untill they got a reputation for being one of the best bands in the genre (this due to the fact that the guys worked their asses off in the rehearsal room in between gigs). The band's working ethics soon led to the release of their debut EP Solitary Echo, released in 2005! Evidently (as happens with so many up and coming acts) the fact that they had a release out led to Maudlin soon playing bigger venues and doing small but interesting weekend tours (with the UK's Bossk and Germany's Tephra, for instance), as well as successful tours elsewhere in Europe (which would take the band to France, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Denmark and Holland), during which they would have the occasion to grace stages alongside the likes of Darkest Hour, Aborted, Amen Ra, Callisto, Leng T'Che, Misery Index, Rise And Fall, Starkwater, The Ocean, The Setup, These Arms Are Snakes, and others. The band then started writing the material for this debut full-length debut with a concept around the theme of transorbital lobotomy, a surgical procedure in which the halves of the brain are separated (thought to be a cure for depressions), as first performed on Sue Ellen Ionesco during the '50s! They've taken the title song of their EP as a lead to develop, really! It would be stupic of me to give you my own description of the band's music, as they've given quite an acurate one themselves. Which doesn't exactly tell just how the thing comes out in the end, because there's passages when the influence of Floyd will come through more prominently that in the more aggressive ones. Especially when the guys have their lust for experimentalism run amok in the longer tracks "To Feel Faint (My Reality)" (9:00) and "As I Fall (Thunder Heart)" (an amazing 17:46 in length, but not one minute does it become boring in any way) which is seemlessly followed with the 2:01 long instrumental album closer "Into The Dark Hands Of The Dancing Devil (Noise Betwwen The Ears)". As you may noticed, the guys give their songs a dual title, each standing "for a hemisphere of the brain", as they put it themselves. In other words, a highly schizophenic thinghy which, to get acainted with, you best surf over to myspace.com/maudlinrocks for, where the band has posted the 6:52 song "I'll Cut Distant Distortion", and commentated passages of the rough mix of the album (plus two previous mp3-files from the EP). Leaves me to report that there were two guest vocal appearances on the album, a male one by Cloon's Tom Claes, and a female contribution (spoken word on two tracks as far as I can gather, among which the posted one) by Line Vanparijs, an acquaintance from Knokke who's doing her logopodist studies at Gent. Me, I'm need no more convincing of the qualities of this great outfit! In fact, although I will probably be able to keep the promo copy of the album (which came in the retail version...digipak only, baby), I already have the vinyl version on my order list next time I pass by the record store! Another list this album is on, is that "Best Albums Of 2008"-list of mine...not because I feel this is indeed one of the best offerings within the genre, but because these guys are darn good at what they do, away from musical genre! That, and the fact that even after having listened to the album for a certain amount of times, and me needing to get along towards reviewing other band's stuff, I'm still reluctant about closing this one off...If only you knew how long I've already delayed starting this up to begin with (thank god I had a little vacation during which I was able to combine work in/on the house with additional listening sessions! 98/100 Tony. |