this one is different. let’s break the rules and judge this book by its cover. Reduction Plan’s (Ae) Maeth has a captivating photograph donning its front sleeve: a larger-than-life explosion, a fire that is all-consuming, an act of combustion that briefly erases the night. take a look at any of Reduction Plan’s other albums or EPs, and you’ll notice that this one stands out. often in chiaroscuro, those covers now appear to be of a different era of Reduction Plan. this fire is symbolic. and depending on your perspective, it’s either cleansing and transformative or it’s an omen of disaster and doom. i suspect Reduction Plan sees it as both.
hearing lead songwriter Daniel Manning put it in his own words, the album’s title comes from a golem of legend, who was brought to life with the inscription “aemaeth” (translating to the word “truth”) on its head. the golem was killed once the first two letters “ae” were removed, as “maeth” translates to the word “death”. you can see the symbolism then: the name of the album specifically highlights the close liminal spaces between life and death, or between truth and death. this theme not only applies to the subject of many of (Ae) Maeth‘s songs, but also to this point in Reduction Plan’s career.
until this album, Reduction Plan has been the DIY project of Daniel Manning (shout out Bethel, CT). Somewhere and Paradise are written, performed, recorded, and mixed by Manning. and in past years, Reduction Plan has gone from solo vehicle to three-piece live band (hi Luis). even so, the project has always kept matters internal, tinkering with its soundscapes and gothic, industrial, new-wave influences. (Ae) Maeth, however, found Manning collaborating with Kevin McMahon, who is perhaps most well known for his engineering and mixing work with Titus Andronicus and Swans’ incredible The Seer. McMahon’s involvement here really opens up the sound of Reduction Plan — where previous recordings could be darkly claustrophobic (a feature, not a bug), (Ae) Maeth just feels bigger. the same spaces of fear and danger on Somewhere and Paradise have broken loose; they’re not confined to songs anymore. now, these songs feel like expansive, growing fields, consuming the oxygen around you. you needed to visit these spaces on Reduction Plan’s previous records. now? now, these spaces are coming for you.
you can see (and hear) then, why the fire on the cover of (Ae) Maeth is important. the dark spark of previous years’ records has erupted into a mammoth bonfire. Reduction Plan has always been a noise-interested project, with pangs of distortion and reverb adding to a sinister atmosphere, but Manning’s songs have never straddled the balance of structure and impressionism so well or so fluidly as they do here. that raging fire is transformative and terrifying, but it also evokes a strange sense of beauty. maybe it’s the call of the void — good old thanatopsis — but i wonder if it is something else entirely. i wonder if it is the way that this album’s pain can be harnessed not just for energy, but for a way out of the darkness, using that truth to escape death, re-inscribing those necessary letters on our foreheads.
here are my three favorite moments of (Ae) Maeth:
“an act of self-immolation”: within the first second of the opening track on (Ae) Maeth, something is noticeably different. the sound is wider and fuller. the normal timbre of Reduction Plan is different. i suspect that if the album started with any other song, you’d probably get the same impression, but “an act of self-immolation”, in its patience and brooding intensity, envelops the listener in the mood of the album as well as its overall sound. i’ll probably always think of this one as “the awesome one where Dan snarls into the mic” from seeing it live.
“preservation”: to my ears, this song sticks out. it’s not quite as gothic as the rest, and god help me, i feel like i hear an echo of The Smiths here. what i like about it, however, is that it does stick out and not quite fit in with the remaining 8 tracks. given its placement, it’s a brief foothold for the listener to find some soothing balm for the soul. and yes, it is brief because the next song is “deliver”, whose opening line is “a loose end in time / no future waits for me.”
“(ae) maeth”: as the closing track, Reduction Plan gets to decide what feeling listeners are left with. the longest song on the album, and its most impressionistic, “(ae) maeth” is a final reckoning. as its final drones of noise play out, it’s unclear what will come next. at the end of this fire, will there be ash? more fire? or will it be something else, reborn from this violent act? again, i suspect that Reduction Plan sees the next step as a combination of all three of these things, or that there’s no real difference among those options.
you can order (Ae) Maeth from bandcamp or redscroll records. (digital, cassette, or vinyl)
