The growth of Philadelphian experimental rock troupe mewithoutYou over much of the past two decades has been fascinating to watch. From the direct and bracing post-hardcore of debut album [A->B] Life, through embracing folk rock on 2009’s ‘it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright’, to exploring seismic shifts in personal and global landscapes on 2015’s strangely prescient ‘Pale Horses’, the band has always sought to test the limits of language through their music and frontman Aaron Weiss’s multifaceted lyrics.
It’s no coincidence, therefore, that their latest–and seventh–full-length record lacks a title, the music left to speak for itself. Weiss’s typically verbose approach is pushed to new extremes across [Untitled]’s 12 tracks, and his bandmates are keen to join him in that exploration of extremity–to wit, his brother Michael Weiss, Brandon Beaver, Rickie Mazzotta, & Greg Jehanian; the last of whom returns to the fold after departing to start a family in 2016–resulting in some of the heaviest material the quintet have produced thus far: the restless, turbulent yin to the reserved and hopeful yang of August’s 7-track companion EP.
‘9:27am, 7/29’ kicks things off with a concentrated blast of post-hardcore fury, before things settle down somewhat for ‘Julia (or, ‘Holy to the LORD’ on the Bells of Horses)’, which joins the likes of ‘Flee, Thou Matadors!’ and the mid-album barebones lament of ‘2,459 Miles.’ In a group of songs that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the EP, their melodic nature and wistful lyrical bent a world away from the confrontational ‘Wendy & Betsy’ or ‘Another Head For Hydra’, songs on which the band tap into their more aggressive roots, filtering their older material through years of experience and growth to create intense walls of sound that might even make long-time listeners’ heads spin on first listen.
Where the album truly excels is in its instrumental performances; ‘Tortoises All the Way Down’ features a coda that’s as lyrically crushing as it is musically transcendent, and the record’s denouement plays out over the course of ‘New Wine, New Skins’ and ‘Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore’ with richly layered arragements and expertly crafted hooks. The latter is as grandiose a finale as mewithoutYou have ever written, and it would indeed be the closing track under normal circumstances, but ‘Break on Through (to the Other Side) [pt. Two]’ gets the real last word, a stripped-back acoustic track that’s disarmingly simple in it’s execution, a postscript that just couldn’t be contained elsewhere.
Contrary to its lack of title, the band’s seventh album has so very much to say, taking in enough voices, characters and points of view that digging into the lyrics seems like a Herculean task even by Weiss’s usual standards. While it’ll take a few listeners to fully make an impact, the record sports not an ounce of bloat, it’s many musical detours and experiments contained within a 43-minute running time. It’s not casual listening by any margin; and we’d advise those new to the band to start with either ‘Julia’ or the album version of ‘Winter Solstice’, but definitely start somewhere here. [Untitled] touches on mewithoutYou’s previously-displayed strengths and takes them to heights that seem dizzying, but the view from those peaks is nothing short of astonishing.
GARETH O’MALLEY