Mayflower Madame - Observed in a Dream

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 27 / 4 / 2016

---

Review

Mayflower Madame are a new band that come from Norway, and to me, they just have it all with great songs that are full of depths. While they nod at the past, they bring things up to date and then smash them through the windows. The band consists of Trond Fagernes on guitar and vocals, Rune Overby on guitar, Petter Marberg on bass, and Ola J.Kyrkjeeide on drums. A lot of bands take elements from the past, heat it up slowly and it sometimes works, but Mayflower Madame are a band that have got it brilliantly right. The album opens up with 'Confusion Hill', which needs to be turned up so it can swim and drown you in all of its creepy, mystical magic. It's very dark wave, but with a big warm openness that sucks you in. The guitar that drives over it is very reminiscent of Will Sergeant of Echo and The Bunnymen, while the bass thunders away gently behind it adding to the guitar's sway. Vocally, the album has strong hints of the alternative 1980's sound, when blokes wore dark long overcoats, and you were either indie or Goth. Here, the vocal is of the Goth variety but doesn't dance away in black caves and is more in the vein of Pete Murphy of Bauhaus. Elsewhere, tracks hint at Rockabilly Goth, while 'Into the Haze (Redux)' is so full of hazy and trip worthy guitar lines that it almost makes me drunk on its wonderfulness. I don't fall in love with new bands like I used to, but this is worthy of my ears and yours, A truly delightful delight. Album of my year so far...

Track Listing:-

1 Confusion Hill
2 Lovesick
3 Self-Seer
4 Upside Down (The Death Loop)
5 Weightless
6 Into The Haze (Redux)
7 Observed In A Dream
8 Forever//The End Of Everything

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/mayflowermada
https://www.youtube.com/user/Mayflower
http://mayflowermadame.bandcamp.com/
http://www.songkick.com/artists/150727

Label Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/nightcultreco