Albums•November 29, 2011•14,998 views

Mouth Of The Architect The Ties That Blind

01. Baobab 02. No One Wished to Settle Here 03. Carry On 04. Harboring an Apparition 05. At Arms Length MP3 06. Wake Me When It's Over

2006 Translation Loss Records

Our score 9

by Nick

10/18/2006

Well it looks like the guys over at Translation Loss are developing into quite a nice little label. With recent stellar releases from Rosetta, American Heritage, and now Mouth Of The Architect, I am now an ardent supporter of Translation Loss and will continue to be as long as they keep pumping out the quality jams. And if you're unfamiliar with the label, consider MOTA's The Ties That Blind to be the perfect first date in what will likely become a long lasting listener-label relationship. While I could attempt to recklessly ramble off obscure ambient/prog/sludge/metal comparisons to describe MOTA's style, I'll just stick to the well beaten path and liken these guys to Neurosis and Isis. Combining slow, heavy riffs with keyboard atmospherics and dark melodic interludes, The Ties That Blind is a pristine example of what the prog-metal genre has to offer. Though long winded in length at a hair over 66 minutes, this record is not in the least bit boring or pretentious. Many "progressive" artists often get lost in their world of experimentalism and find it necessary to include long periods of random noises and avante-gardisms to round out their records (I'm looking at you Kayo Dot), and although I tend to enjoy bands in this category, I will be the first to admit that a lot of that excess experimentalism often detracts from an album. From the opening chord of "Baobab" to the closing notes of "Wake Me When It's Over," The Ties That Blind is a perfectly structured, fully-developed work of progressive music devoid of all of the aforementioned unnecessary noise. As the shortest song on the disc is over seven minutes long, the length of each track leaves plenty of room for MOTA to effortlessly move from slow paced drone-metal inspired riffs accompanied by layered screams to catchier mid-tempo metal sections to near-epic walls of sounds. The musical scope of each track is carefully planned, as riffs are often reused at points 6-8 minutes apart in a song, successfully tying the individual song parts together. While each track could easily be a standout track, "Harboring An Apparition" sticks out as my favorite, as it steadily builds from an intro that would feel right at home on Explosions In The Sky's Those Who Tell... into layered guitar riffs complemented by melodic keyboards before ultimately reaching massive sonic proportions when the sparsely used, but powerful vocals make an appearance around the five minute mark. The album in its entirety also possesses excellent flow as each track leads naturally into the next. The production on The Ties That Blind is really a top notch job, allowing MOTA to capture their wide variety of dynamics and styles. All of the instruments are easily identifiable, making it effortless to appreciate all of the skilled instrumentation on this disc. Bottom Line: The Ties That Blind is definitely one of my favorite releases of 2006 and is an absolute must-have for fans of this genre, as well as a great place to start for those new to it. If you pass this up simply because you already have a bunch of Neurosis and Isis albums you will be fucking up. Hard.

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Cory_ 10/18/2006 8:05:14 PM

hmm

Mouth Of The Architect The Ties That Blind

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