ALBUM REVIEW: Maule – Maule

The new year is often a time for looking forward, for innovation and attempting the unknown. Vancouver-based quartet MAULE have scythed their way against this grain – looking back four decades to the bustling inception of NWOBHM – and have brought the winding guitar harmonies and anthemic chants of 80s metal kicking and screaming into the modern age on their eponymous debut record. But is this is a deserved resurrection of some of the genre’s most beloved sounds, or is this a case of the passion surpassing the product itself? Unfortunately, MAULE’s first outing is a case of mostly the latter. Good intentions? Yes. Good execution? Maybe not.

Let’s start by painting the picture. As one may expect it’s a familiar one, given the almost-exclusive 80s inspiration, and MAULE keep things neat and tidy with compact bangers from each end of this aural trip down memory lane. The band deliver their blows in rapid succession, rarely venturing beyond the five-minute mark, in a tracklist reminiscent of the NWOBHM’s infancy (think ANGEL WITCH and BLITZKREIG), but songs will occasionally borrow from early thrash with Summoner and the bafflingly-titled Sword Woman both sporting riffs that easily could have been rejected from METALLICA’s first two albums. It’s not exactly a formula that leaves much room for moving forward as, on paper, MAULE have taken as many leaves from as many books as they can in a panicked dash and forgot to leave room for their own handwriting. 

In doing so however, MAULE undoubtedly nail the sound and atmosphere of the era they find themselves besotted with. The galloping guitar harmonies, the battle cry chants that accent the record’s staple hooks and even the rich warmth from the guitar tones; it all reeks of 80s metal and could stand on its own as a delightful love letter to those decades gone by. The moment album-opener Evil Eye unleashes its horsepower and vocalist Jakob Wheel gives his best Bruce Dickinson impression, it’s very hard to keep control of your face as an inevitable grin begins peeling from ear to ear and your thirst for £7 lager and a dingey venue grows stronger. 

Unfortunately, despite their blatant fondness of the likes of MAIDEN, you can only get so far by capturing the spirit of something and MAULE is far more spirit than substance – not so much Eddie than Edgar in this case. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wearing your influences on your sleeves, newcomers like MENTOR do so proudly whilst adding their own genre-fusing novelties, but sadly MAULE rarely adds anything new to the conversation. They might nail the ‘feel’ of their predecessor’s music, but what harms the band most is a severe lack of imagination. A sense of déjà vu across the record’s nine tracks is regrettably vivid, with almost every one lurching out the gates with a galloping lead riff only slightly incongruous to the last as the band ride this same galloping horse weary and weak and ready for the glue factory. 

Hooks and chorus chants come just as homogenous – a blessing in disguise as Wheel’s solo vocals can often be a point of contention when hanging in the high notes – as does the general by-the-numbers songwriting approach, with the exception of Father Time where the band must have panicked when they realised they didn’t have a mid-tempo track. Gratefully there’s fun to be had elsewhere amongst the LP’s many solos. They’re all equally as impossible to resist matching with your finest air guitar and give a glimpse of what could be, but beyond that notion the record gives very little to actually remember. 

As a whole MAULE have very much stuck to the rulebook on their first full-length appearance. It brings neither novelty nor rejuvenation to the tired dialogue of ‘the good ol’ days’ but it stands as a well-intended and perfectly serviceable bit of metal music in 2022. The guys clearly have talent but it’s being packed beneath a reductive attitude to songwriting and a general lack of evolution across the LP’s brisk 38-minute runtime. We can only hope that this is a cautious first step for the newcomers and that they just need a touch of affirmation to break out of their comfort zone, because at the moment it’s looking far more ‘Darth Jar Jar’ than ‘Darth MAULE’. 

Rating: 5/10

Maule is set for release on January 14th via Gates Of Hell Records.

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