Decay

I can surely say that I love Mab. Just the name is enough to catch my attention. Then, what else can I say about them... I'd better warn you, this album is very strange. As many strange albums, it's completely unclassifiable. Is it alternative metal? Gothic metal? Very weird heavy/thrash metal? The crazy experiment of fusing thrash metal with goth rock? Or simply the best musical tribute to Queen Mab herself, regardless of genre?

"Decay" is the kind of album where you hear a bit of everything. The first song, "Last tango in London" is, well, a metal tango, with the vocalist, Alice "Psycho Jeremy" both screaming and singing operatically. "Suicidal angel" could almost pass for a Evanescence song, if not for the more hysterical vocals and thrashy riffs. Musically, "More" is a pure thrash metal song, although it has rather unclassifiable lyrics. And the other songs are a very, very strange mixture of all of this. You will hear things on that album that simply don't exist anywhere else.

OK, so, that's very weird and stuff, but is it good? Yes. It's precisely this strangeness, this insanity, that makes them interesting. You feel the satisfaction of hearing something you've never heard before. But once you got past the bizarreness, you notice that this has a lot of qualities and is very enjoyable. One thing that I have liked since the first time I heard Mab was the vocals, who are a mix of opera, yelling and normal singing.

I'll have to say, the music is good too. The singer also plays bass, which means it is always audible and has a rather energetic sound. Same thing for the drums. And those guitars, damn it. Wether it's the crazy solo from "¨Pure", the doomy and somewhat creepy riffs from "Pearl", the soft but strange intro to "Candyman" or the thrashy madness from "More" and "Scared of the darkness", they always have something interesting to play.

This is the definition of an album that takes you into its very own world. If you get used to it, you'll become addicted to their universe of strange and both creepy and lovely creatures, insane vocals and well played music. If you're searching for these strange but awesome metal bands, Mab is for you. If you're also looking for a singer with outstanding vocals, I'd recommend it too. People looking for a different take on gothic metal, alternative, heavy or thrash, and others can look them up as well. As I said, I'm a huge fan of this band. I even put a quote from one of their songs as the title of my review, that proves how much I like them.