Maps And Atlases - Beware And Be Grateful

Beware and Be Grateful might just be the last Maps And Atlases release whose reviews begin with an obligatory mention of the term ‘math-rock’. While their debut EP was indeed a chin-stroking melee of intense guitar interplay and face-melting time signatures, a record which felt like it should have come issued with its own manual, the band have since conformed to that recent trend (instigated a few years ago by the likes of Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective) of hyper-technical and wildly experimental bands tending towards accessibility and pop-sensibility, rather than running from it. Beware and Be Grateful sees Maps and Atlases continue on this welcome trajectory - stadium sized drum sounds; skittering, colourful electronic loops; and straightforward structures of hook-laden melodies all coalescing to create a warm hued and endearing collection of songs.

There were plenty of moments on debut LP Perch Patchwork which got under your skin - no small thanks to the startling range of Dave Davison’s nasal tones, which is still on fine form here - and so it’s fantastic to see Maps and Atlases isolate this strength, more firmly centre-stage it, and distill it into unashamed pop bangers like ‘Fever’ and ‘Vampires’. The former slinks, the latter charges, but both head forwards with a single minded sense of purpose; dropping chorus refrains which explode into life with no reservations about their delicious immediacy.

This is music far too fizzy and generous to have any affiliation with anything as drab as math. Six minute centrepiece ‘Silver Self’ gets so giddy on its own sense of fun that it even flirts with outright ridiculousness - a fountain of colour pitched atop of a weirded-out 8-bit video game jingle, leading into a delicious wig-out of guitar improvisation in its two minute coda. It’s a stunt which would derail plenty of records, but becomes an album highlight in the hands of a band who can combine their dense virtuosity with such a lightness of touch, as well as keeping their eyes squarely on the hooks.

But that extended freak out at the end of ‘Silver Self’ is just one of the more obvious indications that their traditionally mind bending arrangements still permeate the record, ready to be devoured by those who want to hear them, while - for the first time - also being largely ignorable by those who don’t. That’s not to say that some of the band’s former sense of clutter never rears its head, however. The way that the guitar work of ‘Vampire’ gives way to an even more intense tangle of thorns on ‘Be Three Years Old’, to take one example, sometimes makes you wish Maps and Atlases knew the meaning of the word ‘chord’; the arrangements so dazzling as to blind you to what’s actually going on.

But thankfully, Maps and Atlases have learned a lesson from their debut LP highlight ‘The Charm’ - a song constructed entirely from just drum and voice, standing out from the pack thanks to a directness gained from the sense of space in the arrangement. Beware and Be Grateful (while rarely sounding like it could be described as ‘stripped back’) spends a good portion of its running time exploring and expanding on these strengths - retaining the directness of Perch Patchwork’s best moments, while breaking fresh ground with new sounds and an even sharper focus on structure and melody.