Currently comprised of founding member, frontman and primary songwriter Jason Dodson, Kevin Barrans, Tim Gadbois, Chris Warner, Jesse Bonn, Adam Bily and Faustine Hudson, the Seattle, WA-based alt-country/indie rock septet The Maldives over the course of their 15 year history have released four critically applauded full-length efforts, and have developed a reputation for a rousing live show; however with the band’s fifth full-length album, Mad Lives, the Seattle, WA-based septet reportedly finds themselves making a radical departure from the sound that first caught attention, moving away form the alt-country, Americana and rock sound towards soaring, cinematic sound full of ache and loss that nods heavily towards Roy Orbison paired with mystical-leaning, deliberately impressionistic lyrics (sung in a gorgeous and tender falsetto) meant to convey a narrator’s innermost thoughts and worldview as you’ll hear on the album’s latest single “2 Know U is 2 Love U.” And in this case, the song’s wound narrator is swooning over a lost love, whose ghost lingers in a painful and largely inescapable fashion — and when the song’s narrator somehow thinks they’ve moved forward, they’ve fallen back into a deep pit of despair.
This shouldn’t be surprising as one’s past has a vexing and frustrating way of re-entering one’s life at devastatingly surprising moments — and it can throw you for a bit of loop; after all, romantic entanglements are the most anxiety fraught, complicated and strangest relationships we’ll ever know. And as a result, they have us at our most confused and vulnerable, which the song evokes in a breathlessly realistic fashion.
