Amalia Bloom – Maiden Voyage CD (Engineer Records)

Amalia Bloom originates from Vicenza, and Maiden Voyage is one of their latest offerings to the broader audience. This Italian emotive post-hardcore quintet has been active for a while, paving their way to the top with a profoundly melodic, but yet delicate approach to the genre. The group worked hard since the formation at the very beginnings of 2014, defined the sound, and decided in which direction they want to sail on as a band. It wasn’t until April of 2019 when they published a couple of singles such as Chiaroscuro and Vessel as announcements for their debut full-length album. The group wanted to sound as good as it possibly could be.

Through Maiden Voyage, Amalia Bloom offers eight post-hardcore compositions deeply rooted in the essentials of emo-core sound. The group relies on massive guitar shreddings, saturated by the echoic harmonizations. Amalia Bloom appears both ferociously aggressive and melancholic at the same time, but it perfectly balances between these distinctive expressions. However, the band also includes some compelling melodic hardcore ideas empowered by metalcore dynamics along the way. Both production, arrangements, and song structures combine the best affinities of the contemporary trends, mainly demonstrated by the vast portion of the bands within the genre. Still, Amelia Bloom simultaneously sounds innovative, astounding, and modern.

Guitars burst with relentless energy through dense guitar shreds, massive enough to crush everything in a wide radius. While the rhythm guitar punches directly in the face somewhere in the background, other guitar does quite the opposite. Lead guitar calms down powerful shreds through various orchestrations, showcased through echoic octave themes, a wide array of technically demanding maneuvers, polyphonic acrobatics, and other guitar licks. The incredible rhythm section supports all these virtuosities with intense drumming experience, rarely performed in this accordance with the remaining portion of the group. Low-end tones come somewhere in between with slightly distorted basslines, heavy enough to crush all the bones. However, even these aggressive moments sound soothing, delightful, and memorable.

Maiden Voyage offers both heaven and hell through tremendous polyphonous experience. This album settles down the neverending quarrel between mind healing atmospheres and hellish orchestrations. The compositions are thoughtfully written and composed to provide both emotive and calmful indie moments. However, Maiden Voyage carries enough delicacies to satisfy those who are deeply rooted in screamo, melodic hardcore, and metalcore music. Head over to Engineer Records web store and grab Maiden Voyage on vinyl or compact disc.