On 2/25/2022 Maximilian Wentz released a new heavy metal/metalcore single, "Centerpiece", which will become part of his upcoming album Mare. The song is a heavy, wild and relentless track that showcases eerie lullaby vocals, earthshaking growls, and powerful melodic singing combined with fast-paced grooves and dynamic guitar riffs. It is instantly captivating, infusing tasty guitar melodies showcased in cool solo parts, and rides along with seismic-shifting breakdowns. One part of the Mare album is inspired by the game series Little Nightmares, and is focused on the story of "The Lady", one of the series most notable monsters.
Little Nightmares is a puzzle adventure game in which players play as a girl named Six, who must escape the ship called the Maw while avoiding huge and aggressive monsters. Due to her versatile skills and mystical powers she can hide or run away from opponents seeking to catch and destroy her, and is the main antagonist of the game. It is like the classic nightmare many can relate to of a desperate escape from creepy monsters.
The song is about envy and how this quality can evolve into anger and malice. Wentz covers all the instruments in the track including vocals, guitar, bass, drums and synth. The shifts in the transitions throughout the song bring elements of surprise and intrigue, as the momentum moves from lullaby vocals to aggressive and alarming gutteral vocal blasts.
The progression of the song is well-planned following a nice oscillation between tension and release. The growls come in to stay for 20 seconds shifts and release into story-telling episodes of introduction of "The Lady" monster being the "centerpiece of her own crooked world." "She sees right through, she sees through you, she's the queen of nothing", is a great lyric that sets up the image of the monster as an empty shell that has no power to rule, and is blindly existing.
"Centerpiece" and two other tracks were timed in back-to-back releases over the month of February to lead up to the album release, which is building the excitement for the full 10-track album release coming in early 2022. It is a concept album pulling from the game and making each scene have strong alignments with reality.
Maximilian is also a member and lead singer of the heavy metal band 51st State, formed in 2021, and in the summer months he has been a lead singer in the classic rock band Synco, managed by Performers on the Go, LLC, performing in 30+ shows each season.
Max has ten singles, three-song EP release with heavy metal band 51st State. His growing catalogue of music earned him a 2021 nomination for the New England Music Awards for "Top New Act of the Year".
Collective streams on Spotify for Maximilian currently sit at 518, 562 and 51st State has total streams of 31,630. Maximilian has been actively writing during the pandemic and has enough songs in the cue to follow the Mare album with a second album.