Posts Tagged ‘Mayflower Madame’

Watch: ‘Crippled Crow’ by Mayflower Madame

Posted: 15 October 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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‘Crippled Crow’ is the final single by Norwegian band Mayflower Madame’s much anticipated upcoming album Insight, out on 1st November via Night Cult Records/ Up In Her Room/Icy Cold Records.

Compared to the album’s previous singles, this newest track expands on their distinctive fusion of edgy post-punk and dreamy shoegaze, incorporating aspects of noise-rock and darkwave. Driven by a driving bass line and dynamic drumming, the song leads you on a captivating journey – from the haunting verse melodies to the intense guitar passages in the choruses, culminating in a powerful ending. It evokes feelings of longing and remorse amidst the wintry streets of Oslo, intertwined with a burning desire for transformation and catharsis.

Check the video here:

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Mayflower Madame return to the UK and Europe for a tour in November. Tickets are available here.

FULL DATES

Sat 2 November – Goldie – Oslo, Norway – Tickets

Wed 13 November – The Moon – Cardiff, UK – Tickets

Thu 14 November – Daltons – Brighton, UK – Tickets

Fri 15 November – The Strongroom Bar – London, UK – Tickets

Sat 16 November – Hot Box, Chelmsford, UK – Tickets

Thu 28 November – Noch Besser Leben – Leipzig, Germany

Fri 29 November – Kulturhaus Insel – Berlin, Germany – Tickets

Sat 30 November – Chmury – Warsaw, Poland

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Watch: ‘Never Sever’ by Mayflower Madame – UK and European tour dates announced

Posted: 10 September 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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‘Never Sever’ is the third single from Norwegian band Mayflower Madame’s eagerly awaited album Insight, set to release on November 1st.

While their previous singles, ‘A Foretold Ecstasy’ and ‘Paint It All in Blue’ refined their signature blend of post-punk, shoegaze and psychedelia, this new track reveals the band’s more direct and energetic side. Their sound is still spun with alluring dark textures but is now profoundly interwoven with rays of light and a bittersweet melancholy.

Additionally, the track introduces a touch of rock‘n’roll swagger in the verses seamlessly merging with dream-pop elements in the choruses, making ‘Never Sever’ one of their most accessible songs to date. Lyrically, the song captures a nostalgic feeling of being unable to reclaim—or unwilling to let go of—a haunting past.

Watch the video for ‘Never Sever’ here:

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Mayflower Madame have announced they will be returning to the UK and Europe for a tour this Autumn.

FULL DATES (with ticket links):

Sat 5 October – Return To The Batcave Festival – Wroclaw, Poland – Tickets

Sat 2 November – Goldie – Oslo, Norway – Tickets

Wed 13 November – The Moon – Cardiff, UK 

Thu 14 November – Daltons – Brighton, UK – Tickets

Fri 15 November – The Strongroom Bar – London, UK – Tickets

Sat 16 November – Hot Box, Chelmsford, UK – Tickets

Thu 28 November – Noch Besser Leben – Leipzig, Germany

Fri 29 November – Kulturhaus Insel – Berlin, Germany – Tickets

Sat 30 November – Chmury – Warsaw, Poland

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Watch: ‘Paint It All in Blue’ by Mayflower Madame

Posted: 25 June 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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‘Paint It All in Blue’ is the second taster from Norwegian band Mayflower Madame’s highly anticipated third album Insight, out on 1st November via Night Cult Records/ Up In Her Room/Icy Cold Records.

Following first single ‘A Foretold Ecstasy’, which refined their signature blend of post-punk, shoegaze and psychedelia into a sharper soundscape, the new offering instantly puts a spell on you with its throbbing bass lines, motorik drums and hypnotic guitars, until it opens up midway, leaving you drifting in a sea of dreamy melancholia.

The emotional intensity is heightened by frontman Trond Fagernes’ deeply reverberating lyrics about addiction and escapism when love is experienced as a drug. Combining the rhythmic grooves of krautrock and post-punk with the dazzling atmospherics of shoegaze and neo-psychedelia, ‘Paint It All in Blue’ is a profoundly dynamic song unfolding layer by layer.

Watch the video here:

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Over the past years, Mayflower Madame have gained a reputation far beyond their hometown of Oslo, Norway. Following the release of their debut album Observed in a Dream in 2016, which received rave reviews and earned them tours across Europe and North America, their 2020 sophomore album Prepared for a Nightmare firmly established their position as one of the continent’s leading purveyors of cinematic psych-gaze swathed in 1980s dark romanticism.  

In 2022, the band returned to touring the UK and Europe, while last year it focused on writing and recording new music and releasing a Deluxe Version of Prepared for a Nightmare containing 5 new bonus tracks.  

Their upcoming album has been mixed and mastered by renowned Italian engineer Maurizio Baggio (The Soft Moon, Boy Harsher, The Vacant Lots). It will be released digitally via their label Night Cult Records (Norway), on vinyl via Up In Her Room (UK) and on CD via Icy Cold Records (France).

Mayflower Madame is Trond Fagernes (vocals, guitar, bass) and Ola J. Kyrkjeeide (drums). On studio recordings, they are joined by Kenneth Eknes (synths). "Paint It All in Blue" also features Rune Øverby (guitar).

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Mayflower Madame – A Foretold Ecstasy

Posted: 11 May 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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10th May 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Back in April 2020, writing on the release of their second album, Prepared for a Nightmare, I remarked that it had been four years since their debut, Observed in a Dream, and it had felt like an eternity. And here we are, a further four years on, and ‘A Foretold Ecstasy’ has landed as the prelude to album number three, due in the autumn.

Here, they’re straight in with that tight, solid rhythm section – a chunky bass with a hint of chorus to fatten it out while also giving it that classic spectral goth sound, melded to a relentless four-four metronomic thump, minimal cymbals, no flamboyant fills, just taut, a tense, rigid spine around which the body of the song grows. This, of course, is the foundation of that vintage gothy / post punk sound which originated with The Sisters of Mercy and, thanks largely to Craig Adams – who is arguably one of the greatest bassists of all time by virtue of his simple style of nailing a groove and just holding it down for the duration – carried on in The Mission. The Mish may lack some of the style and certainly the atmosphere and lyrical prowess of The Sisters, but the musical ingredients – and in particular that unflinching rhythm section – are fundamentally the same. And so it is that while the dominance of that thunking bass and bash-bash-bash snare may have become something of a formula, it’s hard to beat and absolutely defines the genre.

Mayflower Madame have always sat more toward The Mission end of the spectrum, whipping up songs which owe a certain debt to Wayne Hussey’s layered, cadent guitar style. But what they bring that’s unique is a swirly, psychedelic / shoegaze hue, a fuzzy swirl of texture and light. There’s a dark decadence, a lascivious richness to Mayflower Madame that accentuates the dramatic aspects of the gothiness: theatrical, flamboyant, but without being hammy or campy. And of course, Trond Fagernes’ vocals drift in an ocean of reverb, and the cumulative effect isn’t simply atmospheric: it carries you away on a sea of mesmeric sound.

With layers of synth which drift like mist across a production that balances dreaminess with a driving urgency, ‘A Foretold Ecstasy’ floats between haunting verses and surging choruses – and it’s hinting at their best work to date.

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PHOTO CREDIT: MIRIAM BRENNE

Mayflower Madame – Prepared For A Nightmare

Posted: 25 April 2020 in Albums
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Only Lovers Records – 27th March 2020

Christopher Nosnibor

This is an album I’ve been on the edge of my seat for for quite some time: their debit, Observed in a Dream was fully four years ago, which feels like an eternity. The two preceding singles set the bar for expectations for Prepared For A Nightmare – preparing us not so much for a nightmare, but a haunting set of songs that built on the foundations of its predecessor, flexing new muscles, pushing new boundaries.

The title track raises the curtain in grand style, brooding drama filtered through a misty haze of reverb. The guitars wander in and out of key along doric scales that spin a gothy twist to the echoey psychedelic surf vibe.

After a mid-tempo opening salvo, ‘Ludwig Meidner’ steps it up with full-tilt rolling drums reminiscent of The Danse Society circa Seduction, blended with The Cure on Pornography. There are cold, needling synths in the mix undulating across the thunderous barrage of percussion and the sound’s filled out by a low-slung bass groove while Trond sings about ‘dancing on your grave’: the lyrical themes and musical style remains unchanged, but what is different is that there’s more space, which conjures a different darkness.

‘The Night Before’ is a doomy, gloomy trudge, sparsely set and more about layers than rive – which is perhaps true of the album as a whole this is more focused on detail, on nuance, on atmosphere. Closer ‘Endless Shimmer’ hints at all the shoegaze, even op, and it’s in the mix, but it’s taut, dense, and dark and there’s a tension that simmers beneath that’s hard to pull apart. The fadeout on ‘Goldmine’ seems a little odd, but perhaps that’s as much about fashion as anything. The 80s… This is so reminiscent as to be a repro in some way. But it’s ok: there’s no sense that any of this s forced or artificial. Prepared For A Nightmare oozes song quality and a richness of performance and appropriate production. It’s seriously hard to fault any of it.

Prepared For A Nightmare is definitely darker and deeper and less immediate than its predecessor, but it’s all the better for it.

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Mayflower Madame – Swallow

Posted: 27 February 2020 in Singles and EPs
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Only Lovers Records – 4th February 2020

James Wells

Mayflower Madame step up the promo for Prepared for a Nightmare, the follow-up to 2016’s Observed in a Dream with a second single in the shape of ‘Swallow’. It reveals a mellower side in relation to its predecessor, the bruising ‘Vultures’, and while it’s still very much an example of their trademark sultry psychedelic surf, ‘Swallow’ reveals a previously unheard melodic leaning.

Described as ‘a love song… about the dependence and fragility one might feel in a relationship – involving both a fear of and a desire for submission’, according to front man Trond Fagernes, it’s still not quite pop, and not exactly a ballad, either, and it’s draped in gothy shadows and doomed romanticism.

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Mayflower Madame – Vultures

Posted: 23 January 2020 in Singles and EPs
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Only Lovers Records – 4th February 2020

Christopher Nosnibor

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to change the mood of the day, and for me, it’s often the case that the ping of an email containing a release by an act I like that can be that mood-lifter on a barren or otherwise unremarkable day. The arrival of Mayflower Madame’s latest offering was today’s: having been snared by their debut album, 2016’s Observed in Dream, I’ve been on the edge of my seat for more, and while 2018’s Premonition EP was more than welcome, it felt like something of a placeholder ahead of the next event proper.

With album number two, Prepared for a Nightmare around the corner, they’re offering a taste of what’s to come with single ‘Vultures’, a song about ‘desire, gluttony and vanity – both on a personal level and as a general symptom of the excesses of modern society’ which is ‘partly inspired by the art of George Grosz and Hieronymus Bosch’.

‘Vultures’ very much cements the style and sound they’ve showcased previously, with reverby guitars dominating a psych/goth hybrid form that’s got tension and drama by the spade, but also a brooding, doom-laden atmosphere. The pessimism isn’t explicit, but hangs heavy in the air. But while retaining that psychy / dark surf twang, ‘Vultures’ is harder-edged than anything they’ve released to date, pinned down by an insistent beat with the vocals low in the mix and soaked in reverb and angst. The production more muscular, too, and it all stacks up for a belting blast of tense, dark contemporary post-punk that says the album is going to be a corker.

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Mayflower Madame - Vultures (cover)

Mayflower Madame – Premonition EP

Posted: 28 May 2018 in Singles and EPs
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1st June 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

It all starts with an air-raid siren. A historical sound with connotations of WW2 for many, but still heard in places like South Korea and Japan, it’s a sound which provokes an almost biologically-wired shudder of unease. They may only be tests, but the sound of sirens in the last 12 months reminds us that stability is but precarious. And then the snaking, surfy bass strolls in, awash with reverb… and then the guitars… It’s all pinned to a locked-down groove, and Trond Fagernes’ voice rises up from amidst it all as if from the back of a cathedral. You saw it all coming, right? They obviously did and approach by stealth, before building to a whiling cacophony by way of a climax. But for all of its noise and tension, this feels more introspective than anything they’ve done before.

Norway’s Mayflower Madame draw heavily on post-punk influences – music born out of the dark days of the early 80s, corresponding with the period when cold war tensions escalated to warrant the labelling of ‘the second cold war’, and the economic boom years widened the chasm between the haves and have-nots was rendered more conspicuous by the rise of the yuppie. And so on.

What Mayflower Madame bring to the gothy party is a potent dose of Nordic noir psych and a dash of shoegaze, all doused in massive reverb, and the four tracks on Premonition continue the trajectory of their 2016 debut album, Observed in a Dream.

The claustrophobic focus continues on the swirling, shoegazy ‘Before I Fall’; the guitars twang through a gauze of drifting synths and echoey fx that create a certain distance between the listener and the actual song, an unusual sense of both space and an absence of space. ‘Alma’s Sermon’ is centred around a backed-off yet insistent motoric beat and has greater immediacy and – it’s all relative – upbeat vibe. But then closer ‘Siders Seek’ plunges deeper into darkness: a paranoid shiver runs down the spine of the track’s tremulous guitars, and everything about the song’s construction seems to be about concentrating the tension. And yes, this is tense.

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Mayflower Madame – Premonition EP

Listen: ‘Premonition’ by Mayflower Madame

Posted: 13 May 2018 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Having released one of our favourite albums of 2016 in the form of Observed in a Dream, Norwegian band Mayflower Madame return with their new Premonition EP on 18th May.

Through four tracks of psych-theatrical ingenuity, shady shoegaze and 1980s dark romanticism, the EP conveys the wintry feeling of their home country – icy and gloomy, haunting and majestic.

Title track ‘Premonition’ is an apocalyptic love song where dark psychedelic post-punk combine with haunting vocals to create a feeling of impending doom.

Stream ‘Premonition’ here:

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Watch: ‘Drown’ by Mayflower Madame

Posted: 8 May 2017 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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With Observed in a Dream, Norwegian purveyors of  psychedelic post-punk / shoegaze, Mayflower Madame, delivered one of our favourite albums of 2016. While their second album is unlikely to see the light until late 2017 or even early 2017, they’ve unveiled ‘Drown’ by way of a taster now. It’s by no means a mere stop gap: to say the signs are good for the next album would be an understatement. A whirl of echo-heavy gutars and even more echo-heavy baritone vocals, ‘Drown’ has an aching melacholy emotional pull. Watch the video and get your lugs around it here:

 

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