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NBHAP Rating: 3,1/5
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[one_half last=”yes”]MARITIME
Magnetic Bodies/Maps of Bones
Release-Date: 16.10.2015
Label: Dangerbird Records
Tracklist:
01. Nothing Is Forgot
02. Satellite Love
03. Roaming Empire
04. Light You Up
05. War Tattoos
06. Drinking Peru
07. Collar Bones
08. Inside Out
09. Love You In The Dark
10. When The Bone Moon Dies
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Hidden gems forever
Milwaukee-based MARITIME belong to this group of Mid 00’s melody-loving independent rock bands that gained a small but loyal fanbase but never managed to achieve well-deserved commercial success. Just like their colleagues NADA SURF or SOUTH (who split up a few years ago) they delivered solid material over and over but never became ‘the next MODEST MOUSE.’ But if you really loved the band you actually don’t care it all. And maybe even lead singer Davey von Bohlen and MARITIME never really cared at all. Instead they constantly delivered sweet greatness like the way too underestimated We, The Vehicles from 2006. Magnetic Bodies/Maps of Bones is the band’s first album in four years but right from the moment the melancholic Nothing Is Forgot opens the record it feels as if they never left. They make sure they won’t be forgotten.
With love from Wisconsin
The four-piece from Wisconsin has never been famous for musical progress. Magnetic Bodies/Maps of Bones sounds like it could have been released ten years ago in the exact same form. It’s good old-fashioned and handmade indie rock from an era when ‘indie’ meant to be way more than the overused classification phrase it is today. Although a few songs allow themselves synthesizer moments – like the single Satellite Love – most of it is good old-fashioned bass/guitar/drums/vocal material that follows the familiar MARITIME recipe. Roaming Empire and the uplifting Light You Up head directly into that direction. What you expect is what you get. While that works way better than on 2011 Human Hearts this time, the band’s fifth album still doesn’t reach the simple sweetness of their earlier work although it’s trying its best.
Fallen out of time
The sweet acoustic War Tattoots and the forced rough Drinking Peru feel a bit forced before the sweet and floating tracks Collar Bones and Love You In The Dark take MARITIME into familiar waters again. Still, by then Magnetic Bodies/Maps of Bones suffers a bit from monotony. Over the years MARITIME might have become a bit too predictable and therefore less attractive than on earlier work. Maybe it’s also due to the fact that we’ve all gotten a bit older in the past ten years while von Bohlen and his bandmates remained at the exact same spot they were one decade ago. You can call that integrity and consistency, of course. But it might also explain the dead-end these guys manoeuvred themselves. There is just no urgent necessity to listen to Magnetic Bodies/Maps of Bones as long as there are MARITIME records like Glass Floor which did all this a bit better and fresher back in 2004.
What you expect is what you get. Magnetic Bodies/Maps of Bones presents MARITIME back in familiar melody-loving indie-rock territory with a far too big lack of any surprises.
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