Maidens – Shallows

November 25, 2011 • self-released

Another day, another sludge band to listen to. I don't even know how to start these reviews off anymore since I do so many of these.

Maidens waves the atmospheric sludge banner high, piggybacking right off the great bands of the genre. However, they don't reach much farther than that, and the EP is definitely lacking in the originality department; the opening to first track sounds like it was almost lifted wholesale from an Isis song (for the life of me I can't remember which; maybe it was Cult of Luna?). Now, I love Oceanic and I don't really mind hearing a bunch more music that sounds exactly like it, but this is really blatant. (At least their Bandcamp tags prove they're open about it.)

With that out of the way, Shallows is a pretty well-done record. The songs aren't the most engaging I've heard, but there are plenty of good riffs, some really nice and tense buildups, and great production on it. The atmosphere itself isn't particularly dark or oppressive, more introspective and neutral, but that's not really a bad thing.

Anyway for an early EP it's definitely not a bad start. I've heard their more recent album and I can't say offhand if the originality issue has changed any in the last two years, but even that aside Shallows is still worth a listen.

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