Medical Maps’ third album That’s That is a sprawling fourteen-track opus. Their ambition is unmistakable. The Boston-based band is an prolonged unit, typically working in a configuration that includes six musicians together with accompanying backing vocalists, but it surely by no means clutters its sound. The readability of their inventive imaginative and prescient doesn’t permit it. Medical Maps, as an alternative, has confirmed since their 2017’s debut Gentle on Crime that they occupy their very own area within the musical firmament and are nonetheless as able to push the envelope as ever earlier than.

BANDCAMP: https://medicalmaps.bandcamp.com/album/that-is-that

“Final of the Icons” begins That Is That with an sudden retro vibe. Medical Maps comes roaring out of the chute with a boogie-centric association that cooks from the outset. The manufacturing for the album provides this tune and the succeeding 13 bigger than life with a boisterous sound that however impacts a transparent delineation between the assorted devices. The tune’s eventual transition right into a slower tempo and wider sound doesn’t jar listeners and feels pure regardless of the stark variations in method.

Trumpet and tenor sax play an underrated position within the sound of many songs. “The Canine Door on Mars” is among the tracks the place it performs a pivotal, but understated, position. Many listeners will hear a shoegaze impact pervading the lower, however there’s an equal measure of progressive tendencies influencing the tune’s trajectory. “Standing Shortly” is the primary of the album’s fourteen songs that strips away the expanded lineup in favor of a relatively bare-bones method. It has a rugged and rollicking guitar-based slant with assorted twists constructed into the association. Medical Maps’ capacity to manifest completely different sides of their musical character with out ever surrendering their identification units them aside.

“Two Minute Man” is a blazing instrumental lower alongside related traces because the previous monitor. It bristles with an uncompromising perspective and has a joyous tilt. It’s an instance of a band that revels within the act of creation and the seemingly close to riotous off-the-cuff method they undertake makes for an pleasurable pay attention. “Songs About Spherical Objects” is among the album’s most daring excursions. Medical Maps veers from a near-theatrical first half right into a quasi-hard rock center. The band doesn’t end there, nevertheless. The tune’s ultimate half strikes right into a progressive-tinged conclusion that Medical Maps develops with endurance and intelligence.

“Hurts to Shoot Rings” continues alongside the identical traces. It has a discernibly melancholy air breaking with earlier songs and the stately unfolding of the tune by no means sounds staid. Medical Maps is very adept at layering their instrumental make-up and this monitor is among the album’s greatest examples of that method flourishing.

“As We Quietly Flip into Outdated Males” is among the album’s greatest tracks. It’s one other elegiac flip from the band, wind-swept and nearly cinematic, and the meshing of various voices achieves a haunted temper that holds the listener’s consideration. The lyrics are stuffed with the identical impressionistic carried out poetry current within the different songs, however they’re among the many strongest included on That Is That. This can be a deep and considerate launch crackling with ferocious individuality. Medical Maps are prepared for the longer term as by no means earlier than. 

Mindy McCall