Review by SilentScream213 for maudlin of the Well - Leaving Your Body Map (2001)
It must be clarified outright that I’m typically not a fan of Avant-Garde Metal or Experimental music in general. Avant-Garde Metal usually falls into one of two horrible tropes: the first being that Avant-Garde Metal musicians seem to think that Avant-Garde means it’s not allowed to sound auditorily pleasant, as in the music must be dissonant, chaotic, or abrasive in order to qualify as Avant-Garde. The second is Circus Metal.
Leaving Your Body Map is an offender of the first trope. And to a degree, it is both forgivable and understandable; the album is a very dark and surreal experience. It prominently features Doom influence in the sound, and while lyrically very cryptic, there are hints of themes that range from ethereal and innocent to depressing and traumatic. To that extent, dissonance and chaos are not only appropriate but welcome, and help to evoke certain aesthetics and themes that the lyrics prefer to keep concealed behind a layer of mystery and allegory.
The issue is that there’s just not that much to hold on to, or even enjoy at times. Sure, lumbering, dissonant guitar chords with some off-tempo jazz and a flute thrown in for god knows what reason can appropriately convey a certain sense of anxiety or breakdown, and it can even be interesting, novel, and atmospheric, but is it enjoyable? Well, for me, the answer is not always, not if there’s too much of it. I need melody, harmony, and order to balance the dissonance and chaos in order for it to work successfully.
Maudlin of the well, to their credit, do include a fair amount of more melodic material (mostly prevalent in their acoustic interludes), and a great variety of eclecticism in general. The issue there is that, well, the melodies just aren’t that strong. Everything from the vocal lines to the instrument leads fail to carry memorable melodies.
Let’s talk about a positive though, an area in which this album absolutely excels: evoking the dreamlike aesthetic of the surreal. It’s not just the weird cryptic lyricism, sound effects and liminal album art that convey this. Everything about the song structures, from the production and density to the composition style. Often, songs will throw in instrumental pieces or vocal lines that are not clearly audible, being kind of muffled behind the primary wall of sound, that evoke how difficult it can be to properly “perceive” things in the haze of a dream. Another aspect is how the songs will simply do things that don’t make sense; not just the dissonance, but the way individual instruments will play their own piece seemingly ignorant of the others, out of key, out of time, yet bound together just enough to remain musically cohesive. Much as our brain struggles to make sense of the nonsensical nature of dreams, yet tolerating it for our own sanity.
It should also be noted that every range of dream is covered here: the ethereal, the calm, the nonsensical, the nightmares, the longing, the traumatic. The range from full-on pummeling Death Doom to peaceful Chamber Folk is quite a feat.
I really appreciate this album, and am incredibly fascinated by it. I think it’s a bit of a marvel of musical composition and ideas. But, it’s not always pleasant to listen to. And not in the good way, like a really depressing Doom album that I only want to hear to achieve such a melancholic mood. I mean it just straight up doesn’t sound good at times. There is such a thing as too weird, and too many Avant-Garde artists are guilty of catering to that need to be weird over the need to write a good song. Maudlin of the well are nowhere near as guilty as most Avant-Garde artists in that respect, but still enough so that the listening experience of their music is damaged when some slightly more conventional directions could have resulted in a masterpiece.