Unstable Dream

So this is Mab's debut, if you don't count their ridiculously named demo "Nougat!". This is the perfect debut because it already has that unique sound that Mab is known for. It even includes a song that will be also featured in the album "Decay": "Black".

In a way, it "synthesizes" the Mab sound. With only three songs, you have everything that you would hear only in the Mab universe, and everything that Mab does best. It shows you all the Mab craziness. Alice "Psycho Jeremy" screams and vocalizes at top of her lungs, and you have no idea how to label this music because it mixes many genres into the weirdest magic potion ever. And you still have no idea what the lyrics could mean.

I don't think there is anything quite like "Black" and "Divine", both in style and quality. Because of their weirdness and ear-wormy/hypnotic quality, they are just fascinating. In my review of "Decay", I didn't really took the time to talk about "Black", while it's actually a quite interesting song. The best way to describe it would be tormented power ballad in the Mab style, that means, with undecipherable lyrics, screams and lyrical vocals. It's one of the few ballads that isn't relaxing and more unsettling because of lines like "This lovely tie that ties my neck to this tree" or even "Two minutes to end, to minutes to die", which is repeated before the final melancholic riffs. But it has an irresistible strange beauty!

"Divine" is even more bizarre. It sounds a bit gothic metal-ish, with the doom metal riffs and operatic vocals, but it still has something I can't define, that most Theatre of Tragedy fans are not used to. The lyrics are also enigmatic and somewhat horrifying, I think the chorus says "That corrodes me", and the first line is "Completely empty". The thing I like the most about "Divine" is the operatic chorus, where her voice sounds like it's flying or dancing. It's just as fascinating as "Black".

This is, to quote loosely what I read somewhere else, Mab in their full weird girl glory. If you want to discover what this band is about, this is what you need. It shows everything I know as their sound, includes some of their best songs, and also, to a newcomer's ears, their ability to write the strangest music possible and make it pass for normal, and even likable.