MAUDLIN OF THE WELL My Fruit Psychobells... A Seed Combustible 2 x LP

MAUDLIN OF THE WELL My Fruit Psychobells... A Seed Combustible 2 x LP

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(Antithetic Records)
*** This is a new and unplayed item, direct from the CRUCIAL BLAST shop. ***

DESCRIPTION FROM CRUCIAL BLAST:
   Finally got some of the last-ever copies of the first album from defunct Boston band Maudlin Of The Well, My Fruit Psychobells...A Seed Combustible. The band's sprawling debut featured the same strange mixture of prog, death metal and arty indie rock that Maudlin would cultivate on the later albums Bath and Leaving Your Body Map, here a bit rougher around the edges, the baroque arrangements and the often jarring stylistic shifts from jazzy ambience or moody rock into crushing guttural death metal definitely sounding a bit more awkward this early on. But this album is still a fascinating listen, especially if you're a fan of founder Toby Driver's various projects, filled with some strikingly gorgeous moments and blasts of pulverizing heaviness that were already revealing what would come with Driver's post-Maudlin band Kayo Dot. Long out of print, My Fruit Psychobells was remastered and reissued on vinyl by Antithetic Records in 2013; already long sold out from the label, we've snagged as many of these as we can for the shop, but when they're gone, that'll be the last of them.
   Please note: the copies we picked up were the last available copies from the distributor, and unfortunately some of them have some minor denting and creasing on their corners. The bends aren't completely atrocious, but if you're only looking for a mint copy of this record, you'll want to take that into consideration.
   First released on Dark Symphonies in 1999, Maudlin Of The Well's ambitious debut stood out like a sore thumb amongst the black metal and gothic doom albums the label was known for. Drawing equally from an infatuation with progressive rock and underground death metal, this surrealistic album sounded like little else at the time; the closest analogue would probably have been the artier Dan Swano-led projects like Karaboudjan and Pan.Thy.Monium, but even that doesn't really describe how poppy Maudlin's songs could get. One of the many things that made this album stick out was the emotional delivery of the singers, a mix of male and female voices that traded off lovely harmonies and off-kilter crooning when they weren't belching out putrid death metal roars. Equally quirky are the many moments when the band suddenly swerves out of one of their gloom-tinged art rock songs into a stretch of savage death metal in the space of the same song, massive jagged deathcrush guitars coiling around ornate melodies, erupting out of those passages of wistful prog-pop into crushing ophidian riffs and squealing atonal solos. Moments of pensive prettiness rest alongside blasts of violent, almost Gorgutsian atonality, like the stuttering angular heaviness and synth-draped darkness of "A Conception Pathetic", or else slip into mighty deathdoom dirges seared with soaring gloom-pop hooks. When those female vocals come in, parts of Psychobells can start to slightly resemble a less polished, more prog-fueled The Gathering circa Mandylion, and a trunkful of instrumentation is poured out across the studio floor for Maudlin's mood-building: jangly doleful guitars and washes of spacey psychedelia, fractured piano melodies, atmospheric field recordings, excursions into lush fusion jazz and swells of moody horns, demonic delay-drenched violins shrieking across organ-laced doom, somnambulant soundscapes laced with choral voices, trumpets and clarinets, creepy murmurs and dramatic goth-rock crooning drifting over the slow hypnotic pulse of tabla-like percussion. In the end, Psychobells is admittedly an uneven album, the sound of an ambitious young band working out more ideas than they know what to do with, but they still pulled off a compelling listen for fans of adventurous heavy music, especially that which resides off on the outer fringes of both prog and death metal, not to mention an interesting glimpse into the creative process that would go on to produce the stunning Bath.
    This Antithetic reissue comes in a gatefold jacket that also includes a full color poster and a digital download of the album, and it also contains two bonus tracks ("Beauty" and "The Crystal Margin") that didn't appear on the original 1999 Dark Symphonies release, issued in a limited edition of five hundred copies.   © CRUCIAL BLAST
THIS IS A NEW, UNPLAYED ITEM. Please note that for LP vinyl orders, we usually remove the vinyl from the jacket prior to shipment in order to avoid seam splits or any other kind sleeve/jacket damage that might occur during transit. This may require that we open the shrinkwrap on the record in order to carefully remove the vinyl from the inside of the jacket (if the record was originally shrinkwrapped). Feel free to contact us with any questions regarding this policy.

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