An Engulfing Post-Rock Release from Maitland

The new album release from Maitland blends progressive and post-rock approaches to deliver something that's got a very spacious underbelly, so it's easy to get engulfed and swallowed up by, but also gives a lot of Storytelling and depth, layers, and textures throughout the record's course.

The Falling Into Place record comes through with a lot of really well put together songs that, a lot of the time, boasted unique and raw energy that's combined with twangy guitars and vast approaches and soundscapes.

The record starts with a track called "Einstein-Rosen Bridge", and although this one does have layers of that twangy guitar, there's also some heavier stuff going on, giving this track a bit more edge along with a vivacious energy.

Right off the bat, the drumming is something that really hits you. The drummer on this record is outstanding and really breathes life into the songs, which is something I feel like a lot of the rest of the band sort of feeds off of.

The vocals remind me of something like post-punk. You have this almost brooding vocal approach, and it does deliver a lot of great melodies, but the mix of the record doesn't put them right on top. This is something I really liked because the vocals are almost like instruments themselves throughout this record.

They're not buried in the mix, but they're not overpowering either. The tones of the instruments in the vocals mend and sort of melt together in such a great fashion, so that you have a whole atmosphere to soak in.

Other tracks like "Dramatic irony" start giving you more personal and in-depth lyrical approaches that you start to get pulled into. You can tell some of these certainly came from personal spaces, and it's also a track that showcases more of their slower-paced, cinematically oriented songwriting.

It's got organs, guitars that are spread wide, and you really get more space to pay attention to the lyrics and how the vocals are coming at you.

This is an example of a song where the vocals are double-tracked and have this great reverb effect on them, adding a lot of depth to the song, and this is part of why it has such a spacious feel and why you can hear more of the emotion in songs like this.

The bass guitar performance throughout this whole thing is incredible as well. The tone of that bass guitar is really something special. You do still get a little bit of a post-punk undertone in terms of it, but the whole record is really more post-rock in general.

I love how they bring in some different genres into the mix throughout the record and aren't really afraid to expand and go in different directions when they feel like it.

It is slightly experimental, but the songs are really well built and put together. The arrangements are perfectly done a lot of the time, and this is one of the records that you should be listening to all the way through from beginning to end.

It's a pretty big record, but it's more of an experience when you listen to it in full.

The whole release is semi-cinematic, if you ask me. It always carries with it a bit of a vast undertone, and this is part of why I feel like that cinematic approach is almost always there.

Some of this is due to certain instruments and vocals, at times, dripping with reverb effect and giving that distance tonality.

Certain tracks like "Icarus' Shadow" also showcase some great time signatures and a little outside-the-box songwriting and thinking, which is also something that drew me into the record in the first place.

There's a lot of experimentation in terms of how they actually write the songs. The record is very consistent in terms of the tones and the aesthetic that it gives off, but there are some surprises around the corners here, and it's really fun to soak all of that in.

This was an inventive and truly addictive post-rock record that drew cues from classic bands while also taking its own direction.

It was extremely fun to swim through this record in all of its textures, especially with headphones on.

This would be what I would suggest you do as well. Put on some headphones to listen to the record, because then you can really take in all the awesome layers it gives off.

All in all, it was a record that rocked when it wanted to, was more subtle when it felt like it, and served as a unique escape.

So, come swim through this record and see what it does for you.

Remember where you heard it first.

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