Words: Karl Johnson

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‘Armageddon’ is an aptly titled debut album from mauv, seeing as both sonically and lyrically it leaves you with an on the edge of your seat feeling, an unsettled sense of push and pull – never committing to any one genre regimently, more drifting over a 21st century human experience of disillusionment.

It brings tension and energy in its opener ‘Young Buck’, introducing the intoxicating vocal of Tom Kellett, which drips feather-like over the album yet ever so potent in its presence. The flow and genetic makeup of the record is flawless and engaging at each turn, fusing acoustic intimacy with marching drums on its title track ‘Armageddon’ – moving full-throttle and otherworldly on ‘Paradise’ and ‘Manual’.

The guts of the record’s lyricism seem to focus on freedom of thinking and time spent alone, and though not specifically psychedelic in its sound, Kellett offers choices in his lyricism, trains of thought that open new corridors of personal thinking.

What grips me is the spacious, deep-thinking and escapist feel to the record. In a complex existence is 2022 mauv bring 31 minutes of swampy, subterranean instrumentation which combats the idiosyncrasies of a swelled modern consciousness.

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