Monolithium

It’s not just doom… it’s not just sludge… it’s not just AmRep-style noise… it’s not just Godflesh inspired post-industrial… rather, it’s ALL of that and more. Much more. It’s Dying of the Light. Nobody does it quite like these New Zealand merchants of gloomy audio devastation. Their colossal sound is like an avalanche bearing down on you in slow motion. Heaviness is not an endgame for Dying of the Light, it’s a starting point. It’s foundational to everything they do. It isn’t a point of arrival or something achieved, it’s archetypical to their very essence. My head was still banging twenty minutes after I was done listening to the final track.

“Monolithium” is the band’s third release and features four songs that each clock in around the five minute mark. The opening track and title song has, perhaps, the most epic feel of the bunch but part of that may simply be the impact the song’s video left on me. It’s a stellar production film that features the band on a bleak journey through post-apocalyptic wastelands in search of some strange energy that ultimately transports them to somewhere even more otherworldly than their present existence. It’s visually striking and blows the mind it is all a DIY effort shot on location on the central plateau of New Zealand, Lake Taupo, Turangi, the Rangipo subterranean Power Station and Lake Wainamu inland sand dune. You can catch it on youtube or vimeo.

Each of the other three songs has its own unique identity with perhaps the closer “Factory” (a Shihad cover) being my favorite. It’s the most straightforward of the cuts, but somehow manages to do more with less. The song’s main riffs are very engaging and memorable. I’d almost say “catchy” except that seems somehow the wrong thing to say when describing music of this density.

As first-rate as the production was on the band’s first EP (the only other release of theirs I’ve heard), this time around it’s even more exceptional. Everything sounds compact and solid but there is still enough room for each instrument to breathe and be distinct. The industrial tinges are also how I prefer them; accoutrements adding depth and character to the music. They never taking center stage nor overpower the organic feel of the music.

It is literally beyond my comprehension that nobody has signed this band yet.