Monolithe II

There's a problem when talking about the quality of very long pieces of music. People seem to have figured it out in regards to Opeth, who aren't nearly as long-winded as Green Carnation's 'Light of Day, Day of Darkness' or Acid Mothers Temple or Schubert or Beethoven or anything like that, which seems to highlight the fact that it's easy to forget about the overall quality of a long song when faced with its cumulative quality - in other words, sometimes one focuses on all the good bits added together rather than all the good bits averaged out. Monolithe most definitely fall into the latter category, since their musical project (the word songs seems ill-fitting for their approach) is lengthy in the extreme, being constituted not only of four 50 minute plus songs thus far, but those songs all being part of one long narrative, which shares musical features between songs. What seems to have happened up to now in most reviews for Monolithe is that the reviewer (sean16 is the exception) has been overwhelmed by the scope of the song and has not quite managed to scrutinize it in depth. The reason for this, and the main problem with 'Monolithe II' as far as I'm concerned, is that it resists intense scrutiny and ends up a slightly amorphous blob on the fringes of the universe.

The content of this amorphous blob has been analyzed by our leading scientists and has been found to be made up of vast quantities of doom metal, with the sub-category being funeral doom in particular. Funeral doom is well-known for being achingly slow and crushingly heavy, which is reflected partly in the composition of 'Monolithe II', but those familiar with Thergothon, Funeral, and Skepticism are going to scratch their heads a little at some portions of this song, which progresses much more quickly than any of the traditional bands of the genre, throwing a lot more instrumental variety in too beyond simple keyboards, burped vocals, and trudging, scraping riffs. The scientists have identified clanging, echoing leads that ring out with a kind of slow-motion planetary collision awfulness; these are juxtaposed by hopeful piping leads that seem to herald dawning light, though in the same tone an accordion also occasionally washes over the slow chords; then there are horns and ambient effects that come from the keyboards, as well as the more usual epic backing keys; the sections of the song also come and go with rapidity considering the crawling pace, making this quite a busy experience.

What those scientists have also told us is that although the shape on the stellar horizon is constantly shifting, there is a basic quality to it that never departs, always maintaining a kind of structural unity. The beat under the swelling and rolling of guitars and keys is monotonous and includes little variety, which makes more sense when one realizes that there is no drummer among the credited artists, though someone whose duty is conspicuously "programming", strongly suggesting the presence of a drum machine. The pace is thus consistent for the entire 50 minutes of the song, barring a few breaks when drums and guitars drop out to develop ambience. This means that, although other elements come and go, there is actually little to pick out as completely distinctive, since the identity of separate parts of the song is difficult to distinguish - and a 50 minute trudge can easily become boring. Therefore, whatever musical ideas Monolithe are throwing onto their basic chassis, we still have a song that can't captivate for its entirety, since there are no changes in pace, no vastly different riffs (I remember about two or three from the whole album), and little to focus on in the vocals, which go largely unnoticed. Musically, 'Monolithe II' is a failure.

However, ambiently, it is much more successful. Funeral doom should always be seen on a large scale, viewed from a distance and contemplated emotionally as well as logically. If you play 'Monolithe II' in the background, it sounds suitably epic and swells time until you could believe that this really is about the origins of the universe and mankind. The atmosphere is consistent and always captures the listener, having little to distract from its gradual progress. But that's it - it's just consistent. For each emotional swell as the familiar guitar leads tower up, there's a point when I wish that something of greater musical consequence would happen: maybe a tempo change, a standout riff, or even for the vocalist to come to the fore, and those things never happen. Ambient music is alright, but it can never be great because it isn't an encompassing experience, just a part of the background. As such, Monolithe are really not worth the praise bestowed on them because they don't have the musical skill or variety to be interesting to listen to, nor do they excite or divert the listener for the full experience. There's a fair bit of wasted time here.