maudlin of the Well (USA) - Part the Second (2009)

Tracklist:
1. An Excerpt from 6,000,000,000,000 Miles Before the First, or, the Revisitation of the Blue Ghost 10:56
2. Another Excerpt: Keep Light Near You, Even When Dying 05:59
3. Rose Quartz Turning to Glass 07:30
4. Clover Garland Island 08:18
5. Laboratories of the Invisible World (Rollerskating the Cosmic Palmistric Postborder) 11:50
Total playing time 44:32

Executively produced by a generous and supportive group of 87 fans.

maudlin of the Well left many fans unhappy back in 2001, and Toby Driver's Kayo Dot's questionable form of music was never appreciated as much. Fast-forward to 2009, motW release a new fan funded album as a free download on their website. And their best one at that!

Part the Second plays like a combination of Kayo Dot + maudlin of the Well, leaning more towards the latter, although stripped of 90% of the metal (so they never did need it!). In essence, the record consists of unrecorded Bath and Leaving Your Body Map recordings. I found that pretty irrelevant, though. The way the whole thing is composed makes you feel like it might sort-of explode at any given moment, become something more, a revelation just beyond the horizon that never shows, a volcanic climax that starts but somehow stops. I imagine the feeling is similar to a fairly unpleasant experience, like force-stopping your own urinating process (I can't come up with a reason why stopping another's pee-time would be pleasant, however). The lyrics to "Rose Quartz Turning to Glass" hold just the right words: "I missed the room change color!" You have no idea how vulgarly I could describe this crooked penis of a record! Musically, it is far too delicate, too pleasant, unbearably hard to take in in this form, makes me wish it'd just blow up in a blastbeat already.

But the damn thing never makes me happy - it leaves me euphoric like a drug addict addicted to the withdrawal symptoms as much as to the drug, if not more! While I sure have trouble describing the atmosphere as anything other than "just right," one could bluntly describe it as a calm, ethereal thing on the verge of a heavy, metal as fuck nightmare under the surface / never to surface. Relevantly, Greg Massi is back in the band with his Iron Maiden solo wizardry for the most part, giving the composition just about the only metal reminiscence, like a memory. The whole album is like a faded memory, one of your favorites - maybe one not-so-innocent, but it sure is your favorite and you always kept it stored somewhere in the back, yet you simply aren't capable of rediscovering the old familiarity anymore. You just can't remember.

Wait, what was I talking about? (All possible formats on the motW site.)

You da man, Greg Massi!