The Maladies
With you by my side, baby,
the deal just can’t go down
The Maladies
www.myspace.com/themaladiesband
There’s something a bit old testament about this new album. There is certainly some testifying going on. This one was sent to me by the band’s management and it happened to arrive just as I had a moment to spare, so I pulled it out of the jiffy bag and bunged it the CD player and lo, there was music. Disturbing, satisfying music. I sat and listened to the thing the whole way through, and I’ve heard it a few times since. Although I tend to wait before committing thoughts to screen on new albums, I figured I could risk a few thoughts on this.
Loved it.
The opening track, ‘This Wood and this wire’, is a twisted blues number with the sort of clammy, distorted, distended guitar and horns sound that is pleasantly stomach churning (not a million miles from the Drones, dare I say it). The thing that really stands out, though, is the vocal arrangement, here and elsewhere on the album. Lead singer (and songwriter) Daniele Marando, has a great, tenor-ish sort of voice that he isn’t afraid to kick around the studio with all the abandon of a prison guard with a serial killer at his mercy, and the whole sound of it makes a nice change from the growling sort of booze-soaked vocals songs like this usually attract.
There’s also a choir, as they call it, providing backing vocals, about ten people singing together, and it adds an interesting extra dimension (though what they do live, I don’t know). I must admit, though, that at first I was about to launch into one of my diatribes against the usual sort of football-chant back-up vocals you usually get in Australian rock bands, but I changed my mind on that and decided that it worked. I especially had to eat my words a few tracks on.
The choir is dubbed the Don Walker Appreciation Choir, and they come into their own on track 5, an actual song by Chisel’s resident songwriting genius, Don Walker. ‘Silos’ is beautiful piece, and the band elevate it. Marando’s lead vocal is supported by gen-u-ine harmony vocals that fit perfectly. This one is more Hank Williams than Chicago blues and it is a real highlight.
I also really liked ‘Take me down’, which is steeped in gospel and blues, and again, the choir works really well here. (UPDATE: I forgot to say, I could imagine Plant and Krauss doing a version of this on their follow-up to Raising Sand. Would love to hear it, actually.)
Other than that there are a whole range of influences, the most obvious to my ears being Tom Waits (his post-Swordfish Trombone era) and Nick Cave. Lots of industrial-strength percussion, and deranged, cut-throat vocals in other words.
An added bonus is that some of the lyrics are really clever: the extended riff on love-as-addiction on ‘Song from a hot country’ is particularly good, I reckon.
So look, I’ve only heard it through a few times, but I’m guessing my opinion isn’t going to change too much, which means I’m happy to suggest you might want to give it listen (click the MySpace link above). I can’t imagine them ever busting through into the ‘big time’, but there is a reassuring ambition about what they have done here. They sound like they can be bothered and that they are having a lot of fun. Like I said, loved it.
