Review by Daniel for maudlin of the Well - Bath (2001)

As any perennially curious metal-loving obsessive must do, I’ll occasionally come across a band that, regardless of their alignment with my particular taste or the level of enjoyment I may derive from their music, leave me utterly amazed at the scope & ambition they’ve displayed through their grandiose reenactment of their collective musical vision. Sometimes it can be due to the over-the-top complexity of an artist’s composition & arrangements. On other occasions it might have something to do with the strict adherence to arduous thematic guidelines that ultimately lead to a more complete portrayal of an artistic vision. Or it could simply be due to the sheer breadth of the musical palate that’s been drawn from or the quality of the production & musicianship required to pull everything off. But then, even more rarely, at intervals that generally span across several years, you’ll identify an artist who can achieve all of the above. An artist above artists. A creative trailblazer who has no notion of limiting their scope in the name of focus & accessibility. Boston-based avant-garde progressive metallers maudlin of the Well are one such artist.

I became aware of maudlin of the Well quite late compared to many fans. Their 1999 debut album dropped just as I was taking a well-earnt break from the metal scene & our paths wouldn’t cross until my brother Ben introduced me to them a decade later. The group were built around a core of multi-instrumentalist Toby Driver, keyboardist & percussionist Jason Byron & guitarist Greg Massi with a procession of additional musicians floating in & out at various stages. After forming in 1996, maudlin of the Well had released several demo tapes before being picked up by Dark Symphonies Records; a label run by Ted Tringo, the keyboardist from fellow Massachusetts neoclassical darkwave outfit Autumn Tears. From the look of the Dark Symphonies release list it would seem that the label was originally set up mainly so that Autumn Tears would have a place to release their own music with maudlin of the Well being the first outside project to receive a release. They’d also prove to be by far Dark Symphonies most prized signing to this day with the “My Fruit Psychobells… A Seed Combustible” album first putting the label on the map & the subsequent pair of sophomore releases becoming the label’s only genuine classics. It would be these highly revered 2001 records “Bath” & “Leaving Your Body Map” that would see me breaking my cherry with the band & it would prove to be an interesting experience to say the least.

The two records were always intended to be part of the one unified artistic vision & I’m not too sure why they weren’t initially released as a double album. All of the material is supposed to have been “written” whilst lucid dreaming & astral projecting…. well… to be fair the band have always stated that they simply accumulated pre-existing ideas from whatever alternate dimension they were astral projecting into & brought them back to reality where they expanded & elaborated on them. Sounds like complete bullshit to me. Particularly as I can easily pick up the influences for a lot of the material. I guess these theatricalities are all part of the over-arching artistic concept the band leaders had dreamt up; not only for their music but also their image & legacy. They clearly wanted to keep their audience intrigued & that can be seen very obviously in the way that the cover artwork for each album is essentially a visual representation of the other album’s title. Not to mention the self-perpetuated rumors of there being clues to a hidden secret that no one has ever been able to figure out in the liner notes. But if you ignore all the artsy bullshit, the thematic content is consistent across the two records & the material is known to be a combination of rearranged & re-orchestrated older material along with some newly-written custom-built works with all of the online evidence pointing to much of the musical inspiration coming from Tiamat’s classic 1994 album “Wildhoney”. This is interesting because there are definitely some moments that prove this to be true however these records offer so much more than that with an enormous amount of variety on display.

When preparing to review these two releases, the question of whether to do them separately or as one combined piece of work was something I pondered over for a day or so but ultimately opted to treat them as the unique releases that they are. The two albums may well be linked from a visionary & artistic sense however they each possess their own unique identity & there’s so much in each of them that I feel they deserve to be treated individually. So let’s start with “Bath”.

The cover artwork for “Bath” isn’t the most metal thing you’ll ever see & I think it’s a suitable representation of what you can expect to hear inside. It’s different, it’s interesting, it’s quirky & it doesn’t tie itself to any style of music in particular which is very true of maudlin of the Well’s music. I’m not too sure who produced these records but they’ve done a very good job it has to be said. The cleaner non-metal sounding material in particular sounds glistening & radiant while the more intense metal based tracks are possibly not quite as well represented. There’s certainly a lot of dynamic range on offer with plenty of mid-range frequencies in the mix which is a pleasant change from the overly compressed production jobs we’ve become used to in extreme metal. The depth of bass in the drums is lovely to hear & the clean guitar work & subtle use of keyboards are very professionally handled. The whole production very much in line with the expansive progressive rock & metal approach & I think this was generally suitable for a release this high on musicality & ambition.

Stylistically, “Bath” seems to be an outlet for all of Toby Driver’s wildest musical fantasies. I mean there are so many musical influences on display here that it’s a wonder that Toby was ever able to get his head around the sheer breadth of scope in this undertaking. It’s not just a case of having wildly varying content from track to track but within the tracks themselves. For example, “They Aren’t All Beautifull” kicks off sounding very much like Morbid Angel & Immolation before taking a drastic u-turn around the halfway mark & spending the remainder focusing on a quirky Mr.Bungle experimental rock style. “The Ferryman” starts off in the chunky doom death style of My Dying Bride before morphing into something akin the The 3rd & the Mortal & finally heading back to those strange Mr. Bungle vibes. “Girl With A Watering Can” continues with The 3rd & the Mortal’s female vocal led approach before hitting a Tool style alternative metal riff & culminating in a melodic metal crescendo similar to Katatonia. It’s a lot to take in but the transitions are very rarely jarring. In fact, it’s pretty amazing as to just how smoothly the arrangements change & morph when you consider how vast the musical scope is on some of these pieces. And that’s just the metal-based pieces. The cleaner material actually makes up more of the album than the heavier material does & if anything it’s more impressive. You’ll find traces of many disparate subgenres like avant-prog, art rock, psychedelic rock, jazz fusion, folk music & indie rock scattered across the tracklisting with all being beautifully composed & executed. “Birth Pains Of Astral Projection” even kicks off in the style of “Twin Peaks” while “Marid’s Gift Of Art” is quite reminiscent of Bjork’s artsy chamber pop efforts only with a slightly more neoclassical feel. If I’m honest, the pieces that have the most significant impact on me are generally some of those cleaner efforts like the gorgeously ambient Tiamat-inspired opener “The Blue Ghost/Shedding Qliphoth”, the relaxing “Interlude 1” or the pretty closer “Geography” that reminds me of Anathema & Tiamat’s gentler works.

The instrumental performances are astounding given just how broad the musical palate is. These musicians traverse such a wide variety of sonic landscapes however they very rarely seem out of their depth. For the sake of attributing a label to maudlin of the Well’s sound, I’d suggest that it sits most comfortably in the middle ground between progressive metal & avant-garde metal. A few of the more significant pieces like “They Aren’t All Beautifull”, “The Ferryman” & “Birth Pains Of Astral Projection” definitely fall into avant-garde territory with some very weird sounding moments to be enjoyed. In fact, I’d suggest that I find motW’s more psychedelic material to be the weaker parts of the album as they can be a little grating. But not all of “Bath”s tracklisting is avant-garde. Expansive & ambitious? Yes. But not necessarily avant-garde. There’s a lot of material here that falls more into the realms of progressive art rock & takes the form of either a more complex version of traditional sounds or a dramatic musical departure from the usual directions of rock & metal musicians. The album also leaves me with the impression of being quite symphonic & orchestral in its construction. It’s sometimes even chamber-ish in its instrumentation but there’s a dreamy atmosphere to most of the tracklisting that allows you to sink into the lush soundscapes in between the more aggressive death metal backbone. The guitar solos are of particular interest to me thanks to a refreshing jazz fusion approach that delivers such interesting note selection & phrasing for a metal-based release. In fact, I’d suggest that the lead guitar work may be my favourite element of the album.

But not only is “Bath” a diverse offering from an instrumental point of view. It’s also pretty diverse from a vocal one with four different vocal styles employed throughout. There’s a traditional death metal grunt, there’s a screaming metalcore style delivery, there’s a cruisy & clean indie rock vocal & there’s a beautiful higher register female voice. Personally, the vocals are probably one of the areas that limits me from your higher ratings to be honest. As much as Jason Byron’s death metal growls are pretty standard for death metal, they do seem a bit out of place over some of the music they’re layered over & subsequently seem a little bit cheap. I actually think the album would have been better off with a completely clean vocal approach to be honest. And then Toby Driver’s indie rock vocals take me a llllloooonnnnggg way out of my comfort zone. They remind me quite a lot of artists like Ben Lee or Dinosaur Jr in that they don’t place a great emphasis on staying in key. They’re also a little short on masculinity for your average red-blooded metal audience but somehow they work & I’ve found myself enjoying them more & more over time. The female vocal performance of Maria-Stella Fountoulakis is always a welcome inclusion though & I’m continually reminded of the voice of Kari Rueslatten from The 3rd & The Mortal whenever she enters the fold.

At the end of the day, “Bath” is a wonderful expression of art in general & it offers deep insights into the wide array of influences of the various artists. Could there possibly be TOO many disparate influences combined here to really maximize the impact of each individual element? Quite possibly. I mean I do often find myself wishing they’d explored a particular sound a little more than the brief dalliances we’ve been provided with so that’s a strong indicator that this may be the case. It does make every track so distinct though as they all possess their very own special characteristics & qualities. “Bath” is a wonderful album that perhaps just takes me a little too far outside of comfort zone to command classic status.

For fans of: Kayo Dot, Thy Catafalque, In The Woods…