Mouth of the Architect

Quietly

Translation Loss 2008

Mouth of the Architect return with what to me is their most personal and heartfelt album to date.  Displaying at times episodes of fragility and vulnerability during beautiful periods of calm.  The intro sample for Hate and Heartache is awesome and quite appropriate.  The track revels in mammoth riffs with subliminal noise unsettling the listener and longing melodies tinge our hearts with sorrow.  Pine Boxes loops vocal samples over simple piano and an undercurrent of noise.  Harsh vocals, rabid and foaming, add a point of contrast against the warbling minimalist melodies of Guilt and the Like until more gargantuan riffs come cresting out of the mist.  A Generation of Ghosts has a strong post hardcore feeling to it and features the delicate guest vocals of Julie Christmas from Made out of Babies.  My favorite track, Rocking Chairs and Shotguns evokes melancholy for days and loves long past whether it be through the the straining guitar riffs and layered vocals or the beautiful yet fragile acoustic passages that open the track.  Even though it is the shortest track on the album, Medicine is possibly the most emotionally challenging and it nearly reduces me to tears every time I hear its sweet notes.  Probably the most traditional and straightforward of the tracks on this album is the closer, A Beautiful Corpse.  It is much like a sledgehammer, smashing and crushing all beneath the weight of its riffs.  Some might say this album is thought provoking but I would venture to say it is more emotion provoking as waves of despair and sorrow beat solemnly against my ear drums.  Though Quietly is distinctly Mouth of the Architect it reveals a softer and more sensitive side to these talented artists.  Thus in the end this becomes their most intimate creation and ultimately their best.  I will remember this feeling, Emptiness.