As usual. when the dust has settled on a year, a few late year releases find their way into my hands and miss  the deadline for year end lists, but certainly need some attention, and this is the case  with the second album from the UKs Monolith Cult, a new act to me.

In my older and wiser years I have opened up to more genres of metal including power metal and traditional heavy/doom metal discovering and enjoying acts like Argus, Atlantean Kodex, Sorcerer, Pentagram, Ereb Altor, Horn of the Rhino, Pallbearer and such. One act I have enjoyed from the beginning though is the UKs Solstice, whose New Dark Age, remains a pinnacle of the genre, and it’s no coincidence I enjoy this effort, as  this band and release has ties to Solstice, sharing bassist Ian Buxton.

The sound is similar, clean sung epic doom/heavy metal but it brings with it a crushing, heavy guitar tone suited for a heavier, stonier genre, buzzing with a thick, resonant tone. The vocals, which are usually the sticking point for me in the genre, are not too falsetto or croony, and are even buried in the mix to allow the rich, fuzzed out riffs to be the focus of attention.

The 7 song, 42 minute run time is perfect, with no real over wrought 10 minute tracks or intros and such. The 9 songs each have plenty of riff and chorus based highlights like opener “Disconnection Syndrome” with its slight choral injection, the title track with its crushing, melancholic opening riff and huge subsequent groove, despondent crawl of “King of All That Is Lost”, more urgent “Sympathy for the Living”, heaving lurch of “Complicit Own your won Abuse” and rending closer “Death Means Nothing”.

In all a pretty darn good album, and it must be for me to like something in this genre. And it will certainly hold me over until Solstice’s White Horse Hill drops later this year.

 

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments