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| Now that is some freaking album artwork. |
Behold! The Monolith's second record,
Defender / Redeemist, is a step up from their debut in many
ways. Primarily the arrangements and performances are tighter and
more visceral. However, despite overwhelming potential for killer
live performances, the band does not show originality or ingenuity
when it comes to studio recordings. The guitars are mixed way too
loud, making the other instruments seem less important, and the
vocals are so low in the mix that they are relegated an atmospheric
element rather than a melodic driver. That's not necessarily a bad
thing, but in the case of this album the songs really needed a
soaring vocalist to make the indulgent guitar lines sound a little
less egotistical.
However, I don't want to be too
critical of this guitar player, because he has some serious chops.
Out of all the modern stoner-metal guitar players, he is probably the
most sophisticated technically. But from his impressive skill comes a
fundamental flaw: he lacks spirit. The stoner and doom genres were
founded upon rawness, and it's the lack of this fundamental element
that makes him sound less like Tony Iommi and more like Randy Rhodes
trying to impersonate Tony Iommi. In short, it just doesn't sound
natural.
Assuming that he is the primary
creative and writing force behind this group as is likely considering
the overbearing placement of guitars in the mix, he needs to focus
less on cramming as many ideas as possible into songs and more on
making one or two good ideas fit together seamlessly. The transitions
between riffs on Reedemist are not only abrupt, but also
predictable. Abruptness works in thrash, death, and black metal, but
Monolith's band aesthetic and tonal nature indicate that they don't
want to be Anthrax, Dying Fetus, or Venom. They want to be the new
Sleep, yet they end up sounding like YOB trying too hard to be
Mastodon.
Of course the typical comeback argument
is always, “Nah man we just want to be ourselves.” Let mm just
say that that is not only the typical artist's response, but
especially the typical stoner artist's response. When I listen to a
lot of today's “stoner” metal I often think that the people
producing it are simply so stoned when they are writing that the
recycled rip-offs they produce actually appear to them to be
completely original ideas indicative of their envisioned idea of
their band. They are effectively really loud DJ's creating playlists
of their favorite artist’s music, changing a few things around, and
calling it their own work. Sadly record labels releasing this stuff
don't seem to care too much either since a large portion of their
market wont hear it as ripped-off, or if they do will also be too
stoned to care, they will consider it totally “new” and
desirable. The genre with its dystopian, tormented, and wounded
humanist themes deserves better, yet band's like this continue to
spit it out with the balls already lobbed off.
Some groups can meld genres blatantly,
and it works, like Mastodon, whilst others need to pick one or two
grooves and explore them organically, allowing the riffs, rhythms and
melodies to ride out and compliment each other as needed. What's
abrasive about this record is not abrasive in an intentional way. No,
here tension exists sheerly from the warring forces of the band's
collective mind as it struggles to discover who it is whilst clinging
to prefabricated ideas of who it should be. Lie a moody teenager
yearning to fit in, yet instead of fighting the powers that be,
giving in to them and interpreting what it thinks is “cool” into
something that is the complete opposite.
