June 23, 2017

Maggie Brown: Another Place

photo: Joni Spaan

Amsterdam indie guitar band Maggie Brown went through some major line-up changes. Lead singer and guitarist Marcel Hulst, keyboards player Friso Schmid and drummer Pascal van Baren are still part of the quintet that released a self-titled full-length in 2014. Finding a new bass player and guitarist took some time and in the meantime Hulst recorded a solo album and switched gears to record the Sunrise Reprise EP with his psychedelic electronic indie trio The Slideshows.

Most bands would sound quite different after such major line-up change but overall feel of the new album Another Place is pretty much the same. Maggie Brown has a knack to make the horrid sound gentle in Plane Crash or make disappearing appealing in Void. Hulst's dreamy wavering vocals and Van Baren's dry drum sound are the dominant factors. Hulst played all the guitar bits - former guitarist Randy Derkhof can be heard on two of the tracks.

Another Place is an album about loneliness, with most of the songs not rising above a whisper. When they turn it up a notch in Loss vs Weight or use well-placed echo in the title track all pieces connect like a seamless jigsaw puzzle. Getting a bit louder might be the way to go, not as an alternative but as another way to channel their moods.

Maggie Brown:
Marcel Hulst: vocals, guitar
Friso Schmid: keyboards
Thomas Dow: bass
Pascal van Baren: drums
Steven van der Steen: guitar

Another Place is a self-released album. Buy it from their website. Physical (CD, Vinyl) release date: July 1st. Digital on Spotify and iTunes.

Trackc:
  1. Intro
  2. Silent Radio
  3. Plane Crash
  4. Any Other Wave
  5. Hail To The Rain
  6. Loss vs Weight
  7. Void
  8. Penny In The Long Run
  9. Another Place
  10. Hummingbird

Live dates:

» maggiebrown.nl

HCTF review of Maggie Brown.

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