Time in Malta "Alone With the Alone" CD
[Equal Vision]
This is by far Time in Malta's most melodic effort to date, and I quite enjoy it. There's still a mix of styles involved, with lots of chunky chord progressions, dissonant textures, slightly jarring and caustic rhythms, gruff yells, clean singing, and so on. But the songwriting is definitely heading in a catchier and more tangible direction now, with a lot of really evident post-hardcore influences popping up. It doesn't sound like an entirely different band or anything, but there's a lot of material that's a lot easier to grasp, and I like that, despite what their detractors might have to say about it. "Forty Seven" kicks things off curiously right away with soft acoustic guitars and lulls of feedback, "Ghosts" opens with beautiful acoustic guitars layered against distortion for lots of subtly technical arpeggiated riffing and makes for one of the strongest and most memorable tunes herein, "Perform the Surgery" picks up the pace a little and throws around some harmonics and heavier rhythmic structures/picking patterns, and closer "The Wayfarer" runs more than six minutes but also contains some of the most surprisingly catchy chord progressions and lead lines of the entire album. Occasionally some really nice backing guitar textures will seep in that have a droning quality (notably at the start of "Fused as One"), and there's a lot of really careful layering going on at all times, where a lot of building blocks are used to create the end result even though each individual detail might not even be noticeable. So the production sounds great to me. The guitars are really heavy but have a dry sort of warmth happening, the bass plunks away just barely behind the guitars, and the percussion is crisp without losing its punch. I'd say elements of the drumming need a little more depth and natural presence (mainly the snare), but it's not a real issue. The vocals feel ever so slightly separated from the music, which is only bothersome because the singing could probably stand to be slightly stronger, but in the end I'm not bothered by that at all. Visually everything is printed on matte paper with a consistent color scheme. Aside from a band photo and a few images of lone figures standing in desolate outdoor landscapes, most of the booklet is made up of black pages with a few dirty textures and all of the lyrics - which are of course predominantly personal, and I find elements of them to be quite well composed. "The change is coming and I claim it, Pushed aside every emotion, I've been chasing my own tail, Sooner or later this noose will come unwound, This kettle's ready to blow, Change is coming now..." My guess would be that this is a bit of a transitional record. It's definitely heading down a new road, one that's more accessible for a wider range of listeners, but it's neither an inconceivable stretch nor a fully developed vision, so their next outing could be the one to really see the seeds sown here through to fruition. Very nice. Sure, there are some weak songs here and there, but there's also a lot of great material. Hopefully the next one will big a major benchmark for these guys. (7/10)
Running time - 47:50, Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: Bare Witness, Ghosts, Fused as One, The Wayfarer]
Equal Vision Records - http://www.equalvision.com

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