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Recording:
  Something Soft  
 
Artist(s):
  M(h)aol  
 
Label:
  Merge  
 
Release Date:
  16.May.2025  
 
Reviewed by:
  PostLibyan  
         
 
Rating:
   
         
 
Review:
 

This is the second album from this fun Irish band, but, let's jsut cut to the chase and address the most importan issue first. How the heck do you pronounce that name? So i Googled that and I found this:

The band name is in Irish and comes from 15th century Pirate Queen, Grinne Mhaol. The brackets in the name isolate the "h" which changes the "w" sound of the "mh" to an "m" sound so the name is pronounced like "male" because that's funny...

This quote comes from the Orange Amps website, where they interviewed lead band member Constance Keane. The band does not bother to explain this on their BandCamp, and their label does not bother to explain it either. Ultimately, being named after a pirate queen is kind of cool. But Ireland, come on guys -- what the hell is up with the way you spell things?

Anyway, this is their second album, and in listening to their work I have been struck by their complex and fascinating rhythms. The reason this band seems so rhythmic is that leader and principle songwriter Constance Keane is the drummer and that the band has two bassists: Jamie Hyland and Zo Greenway. And boy do these ladies know a beat!

These songs surge forward under these rhythms, and if anything I think the band has gotten even better in the two years since their debut. This album is dominated by rhythm in a way that few records are. If my hips still worked enough to allow dancing, I would be all over the floor to these tunes. As it is, the best I can do is blast in my headphones as I ride the exercise bike. M(h)aol make great songs for moving, however you can move.

Speaking of moving rhythms, I want to talk about one of the songs on this record, one that I think is fan-freaking-tastic and, the first time I heard it, made me stop dead in my tracks to just listen. It's called 1-800-Call-Me-Back and it uses number dial sounds as a type of rhythm in the song. What a brilliant idea and why has no one else thought to do this? Or did someone else do it first and it was just an obscure thing that I am not aware of? Anyway, the song is catchy as all hell, with someone typing away on their phone while Keane sings and beats a jaunty rhythm on her drums as the guitar and bass make noise. What a fun tune!

That's the song that standouts the most to me, put there is a lot to like here.

There are two songs that parallel songs on their debut record. And what I mean by that is that one the debut you had the fun Kim is a Punk Type Dog, a love song from Keane to her beloved pooch. And on this record we get I Miss My Dog, which is about Kim the punk dog being missed after she crossed The Rainbow Bridge. I'm not a dog person, but 13 years with an animal is a good long time. And both tunes are fun.

The next parallel is more disturbing than the sorrow of hearing about her dead dog. M(h)aol's debut started with the bitter Asking For It and this record starts with Pursuit, which is about Keane trying to avoid a situation where someone would say she was "asking for it". This is all disturbing, really, but both are great tunes, and I think that Keane is trying to interpret her negative experiences by screaming about them. On Pursuit her insistent drum beat is joined by Sean Nolan's overdriven guitar, as the song grows, becoming faster as she runs faster, more frantic, at the end Keane is screaming about trying to escape pursuit... A hell of a song.

One more track of note: on Vin Deisel the basses and the drums keep a really fun stop start rhythm as Nolan mutters through some echo about ... something that I guess has to do with Vin Diesel. This is an odd song with really strange rhythms, but it's fun.

And that is what I like about M(h)aol: their music is fun. It helps that they are doing different things, and the two bass, guitar, drums lineup is a little different.

I really like this record. M(h)aol continue to impress.

 
         
 
Related Links:
 

https://www.mergerecords.com/artist/mhaol
https://mhaol.bandcamp.com/album/something-soft

 
         

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