Taken with Mazes’ Instant Brilliance [stream]

Chicago-based Mazes and their druggy pop sounds perform a feat of osmosis, transferring their high to our heads via a sweet, psychedelic cloud of sound. Mazes don’t bother with subtleties, hurling dirty guitars and punk rock attitude with intentioned velocity. Though their sound is loose, there’s something very calculated in the way they arrange their highly melodic tracks, leading us to believe that there’s a lot more to be found beneath the scuzzy, lo-fi surface. In fact, last year’s Mazes Blazes feels like a hidden secret that should have been floating to the surface of everything — like one of those goddamn, ridiculous sponsored posts.

Mazes is “made up of three multi-instrumentalists, Edward & Caroline from The 1900s and their peculiar friend Charles d’Autremont, aided & abetted by bassist Tom Smith (ex-Office and Old Fake), and drummer Pat Cavanaugh.” Basically, this is a band of incidental musical genius, covering their tracks with a sheen of “whatever, man” (see repeated chorus refrain on “FUSA”). Each track, though, seems to cover intense sonic territory, and the brilliance is undeniable no matter how many times they say “dude”. It’s especially evident on tracks like “Young & Gross” and “Peace Can Do No Wrong”, which find them making simple statements in an intensely gritty, gorgeously orchestrated fashion.

Mazes’ experimentalism makes for one hell of a listening experience — at times, the noise rumbles and moves in such a way that overwhelms, but the change-up always leaves you more foggy, more in love than when you began. The band is currently finishing up a brand new record that we’re most definitely excited for. So, because I suck at choosing, check out my two Mazes Blazes picks now: “Peace Can Do No Wrong” and “Lois & Clark & Lake”, but don’t hesitate to grab the record in its entirety here.