MAIEUTISTE - Maïeutiste (LADLO Records - CD 2015)
Yet another LADLO releases and
well, if I can be honest, this is also my truly favourite offering from this
label yet! And it’s just surprising, as not only this album came from a band,
which I never heard of before, but nothing – just nothing – was telling me that
it’s gonna be so damn good. But it is. Ladies and gentlemen, let me present you
Maïeutiste. France again, as you can guess by their unpronounceable name
(haha!), and the band was formed in 2006 and even did a demo “Socratic Black
Metal” in 2007. But it took them another eight years to complete an album. And
damn, it was worth waiting; this album is excellent!
I must say that usually I’m
not a big fan of terribly long album. Too often they end up containing half
great / half filling material and more so, there can be some boredom coming
after 40 or more minutes… you know the problem. And well, “Maïeutiste” is 75
minutes long. But hold on! There’s absolutely not even a single fragment, which
I would say is weak or filler. I can only speak in super positive words about
the music and despite the album being so long, it just stays interesting all
the way through, with a killer song following killer song, great riffs,
fantastic arrangements, vocals… Damn, everything about “Maïeutiste” is close to
perfection, in my opinion! The only small problem I have with this long album
is that not always I can have time to listen to it from start to end or maybe
sometimes my focus on the music runs away after some songs – but I would never
say that the album gets boring or the songs are any weaker. Not at all and as I
already mentioned, this is brilliantly composed music, very well played and to
me, “Maïeutiste” is just spectacular. Actually I must say that I have not been
listening to anything else since a week, only this album was spinning on my CD
player and also on mp3 player on the road to / from work, so I assume it also
says a lot how much I appreciate this album.
As for the content of this
album, well, probably I would need to describe every song separately, so you
can imagine how diverse and full of ideas it is. But I always find something like
this boring, so I am not gonna do this.
The influences for the music
must have had a wide range, going from more progressive, doomy and melodic acts
such as Opeth up to black metal, with some Scandinavian stuff from Mayhem to
even such Forlorn and even slightly harsher, but quite epic at the same time
bands like Helrunar. These comparisons are quite loose though. They’re not
exact comparisons, as it’s impossible to pick up one or two bands, which would
have recorded similar type of album. You know, already a blend of melodic doomy
metal with harsh black metal is something uncommon, in my opinion. And if such mixture
can sound odd to some, I dare to say that it worked tremendously well and Maïeutiste
came up with excellent record. And with such a wide range of influences, I
guess it can also be an album for everybody. I hope so at least.
Anyway, I should mention some
of the best moments of this full length… and let me start with “...in the
Mirror...”. This song basically begins with a furious, fast and harsh black
metal way. But “...in the Mirror...” evolves; from fast black metal in the
beginning, it slows down drastically into a nice doomy passage, filled with
some great harmonies, many catchy bits and truly phenomenal clean vocals. When
comparing the beginning with the mid / end fragments, it turns out that this
song has changed like night into the day! The same I can say about “The Fall”,
which is another superb song here, but on the other hand such “Reflect /
Disappear” does everything to keep that black metal feeling and viciousness
through the whole song, which is great of course! Later “The Eye of Maieutic
Art” would be an example for what I mentioned before – some harsh black metal
with doomy stuff, filled with great, harmonious guitar work that makes the
music more catchy and easily listenable, even if these song is actually nine
minutes long! And “Lifeless Visions” and “Death to Free Thinkers” are all
doomy, sorrowful, mournful and depressive, but with a strong melodic touch,
which I like a lot. Excellent! Towards the end, the album becomes more
atmospheric, more melodic and I am not sure if it’s due to the whole concept
this record has? No idea, but it works perfectly well.
So, you can see that a lot is
going on “Maïeutiste”. Acoustic guitar passages (like in “The Fall” and “Absolution”),
long instrumental pieces ( “Introductions...”), some clean vocals in few tracks
as well (“Death to Free Thinkers”, “…In the Mirror”)… And there also such track
as “Purgatoire”, which is like an ambient song, with a strong ritualistic aura;
very dark and eerie, finished with the acoustic guitar play. Such songs make me
feel like the whole album was almost like a journey, you know? And I know that
it also has a deeper concept, about philosophy, Socrates, etc, but since there
are no lyrics, so I am not gonna comment that. Let me just add that the album
is divided on three parts: “Eveil”, “Chute” and “Elevation”. More so, I
mentioned how long this album is, but the limited box edition and tape are even
longer, containing an extra song!
Summing up then. This is
incredibly great album, I love it. And mind it or not, but I truly think that “Maïeutiste”
is among the best – if not the best – debuts of the year. And the only reason
why I am not giving them a perfect score is that I don’t want to put too much
pressure on the future recordings of this band. Very, very recommended!
Standout tracks: “...in the
Mirror...”, “The Fall”, “Lifeless Visions”, “Death to Free Thinkers”
Final rate: 90/100
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