Review of Maserati - Inventions for the New Season
idiomag - personalized music magazine. Music News, Reviews, Videos and Playlists personalized just for you.
On their fourth LP and first in four years, the Athens, GA quartet Maserati has created an album that is as intrinsically refined and luxurious as their Italian car maker's namesake might suggest. Inventions of the New Season marks a couple of notable firsts for the band. It is their first go-round with a new label (Temporary Residence) and their first album with drummer Gerhardt Fuchs. Fuchs has contributed to !!!, LCD Soundsystem and The Juan Maclean, and with such firm ties to the DFA label it is no surprise that Inventions sport a danceable rhythm section that was mostly absent in the band's previous work. The all-instrumental album is meticulously laid out over eight symbiotic tracks that play out like a motion picture soundtrack. Its sonic landscape resembles a mountain range with steep peaks and low valleys. The result is something with exhilarating highs coupled with mundane lows. The album begins with the nine-minute-plus "Inventions," a song that slowly builds with an anticipation to explode like a boiler on the fritz. Once the groove sets in, it is all-enveloping. A driving beat is upfront in the mix, while ethereal guitar sweeps through the background like a gust of wind caught between two buildings. It is music to concentrate on, to listen to with narrowed eyes and a slowly bobbing head. About six minutes into the song, the intensity picks up and the beat kicks in. "Inventions" starts a deluge of acoustically clean psych-rock. The real highlights of this album come when the songs pick up the pace and drive forward. When they are interlaid with a danceable beat, the moment becomes intoxicating. The end of track "Synchronicity IV" is a great example of the band's inventiveness. The influence for this album clearly comes from "Meddle"-era Pink Floyd, krautrock and the more sublime sounds of psychedelia. "Inventions" and "Show Me the Season" are great tributes to Floyd's timeless "One of these Days." Although the album is expertly produced, their choice to ignore the darker side of psychedelia results in a lack of abrasiveness that would give this album a much-needed jolt. Absent are Os Mutantes-like buzz-saw guitar lines or the boundary-pushing madness of 70s era Japanese psychedelic bands like Flower Travellin Band or even the modern psychedelic synth sounds of bands like Wooden Ships. Maserati made a beautiful-sounding record that is skillfully played, creating an interwoven blend that flatters all the instruments and displays flashes of brilliance. In the end, though, if you are going to dabble with psychedelia, sometimes it's the dirtier, the better. Take the compositions found here and play the guitar lines with a telecaster through old double-stacked Marshall tube amps and the results would be a lot more exciting.
By Brandon Ginsburg
Related Articles
- This Will Destroy You Review - This Will Destroy You
- Saxon Shore News - Saxon Shore Sign Publishing Deal