Album Review: Maria BC - 'Spike Field'
Maria BC has come out with a hauntingly beautiful new album, Spike Field, on Friday, 20th October via Sacred Bones Records.
Later this month, Maria BC is performing for three cities in continental Europe, then beginning their UK tour shortly after, which will include a performance at London’s Mirrors Festival. Finding success with their first album, Hyaline (2022), much can be expected with the enthralling Spike Field. A curious name for an album, a ‘spike field’ is when granite thorns poke up from a nuclear waste site, warning visitors of the danger in the ground. The remnants last for future generations to find; touching on the fact that there are some elements of our human existence that will never disappear. In this album, Maria BC is asking listeners to contemplate their relationship with time, language, and human civilisations in relation to the concept of spike fields. For Spike Field, they say: “I wanted to erase the memories of anyone who knew me more than a year ago. (Stereo Sanctity, 2023)” Rebuilding one’s identity is no easy process, but Maria BC has mastered this here, birthing a new shape in the form of new and diverse arrangements. They said they wanted to fill out ‘the sonic space’ left empty in their previous music releases, which they have done an exemplary job of with Spike Field.
Luring you in with their classically trained mezzo-soprano voice that has a soft, almost untraceable quality to it, they have a special charm. The aurally stimulating soundscapes found in tracks like the opening “Amber” with its eclectic buzzing and mellow guitar, or in the stirring “Lacuna,” originally released as a single, with its chimes and ambient pad, open up a vastness in one…as if someone is tuning you to Maria BC through the ethereal lightness and more sombre tones that their pieces contain. From the scraping intensity of “Tied” to the breathtaking sadness in “Tire Iron,” they have mastered a wide spectrum of musical highs and lows, bringing listeners into the undertow of their emotional landscape. Composed when Maria BC was 16 – a tribute to their younger self – the piano featured in “Still” transports listeners to a higher plane with that theme, again, of beautifully haunting etherealness. The captivating “Watcher” is about “confronting other people’s pain and figuring out how best to show up for them.” One can almost feel the pain that’s felt with how their voice tugs at your heart to sympathise. On a somewhat similar note, “Mercury” is about how escapist behaviours can become strangely healing with lyrics like, “Nobody’s perfect,” “Clarity will never come,” and “You raise up a glass to the sun/And fracture the rays.” Maria BC exemplifies the ironic duality behind self-harming in those lyrics, saying that sometimes, our darkest moments can give us the most light. “Return to Sender,” surely a nod to the Elvis Presley song under the same title, discusses how an empty distance widens between two people when one of them no longer wants to be in the relationship. Maria BC sings “So I’ll just let my answers get back” and that there’s “no need” for a reply anymore; the silence from the other party is the answer. It’s a metaphorical death, in a way. We can surely empathise with their feelings. Themes of loss and hurt creep into this album’s landscape as Maria BC’s evocative songwriting strikes deeply into whoever is listening.
Spike Field is a creative testament to the parts of humanity that linger in our collective consciousness’ abyss. A reminder of what we can’t get rid of and can’t forget, paired with Maria BC’s ghostly musical tones. We can’t escape the enticement of danger and death; it’s always there, chasing us in the dark, but always leaving us softer.
Words by Sydney Kaster
