(Andy Synn goes all in on the unforgettable new album from Monosphere, out Friday)
If yesterday was all about turning OFF your brain and cranking UP the volume (and the violence) – check out my review of the new album from Acranius for more info on that – then today is all about getting those synapses firing on all cylinders again with the latest slab of cerebral-yet-crushing Prog Metal from Monosphere.
Last time we heard from the band we were attempting to catch up with some of the things we hadn’t manage to cover properly in 2023, lavishing some short (but fully warranted) praise on Sentience for “not only getting even heavier and more technical but also embracing and expanding [the band’s] proggier proclivities too“.
Well, Amnesia takes all that a step further – especially in regards to the increasing heaviness of the group’s sound (which, as massively heavy, moodily melodic tracks like “Collapse” and “Anomia” quickly demonstrate, lands somewhere between the gargantuan, Post-Deathcore grooves of Humanity’s Last Breath and the proggier, but similarly Meshuggah-influenced, approach of latter-day Project 86) – while still retaining that carefully crafted balance between intensity and introspection which characterised their previous work.
And while this sense of balance is vital to the album’s success, so is the idea of flow, with every track on the album shifting seamlessly into the next – with the electrifying electronic pulse that closes the aforemenioned “Collapse” mirroring the introductory riff refrain of “Anomia”, for example, while the bouncy, Becoming the Archetype-esque piano patterns of “Allusion” prime the listener in advance for the pounding, rhythms (and counter-rhythms) of “Limbic” – so that it’s very difficult, due to the record’s inherent, attention-grabbing sense of momentum, to find an obvious skipping point.
It also helps that, even though the songs are purposefully designed to fit together as part of greater whole, no two tracks – whether you’re talking about the brooding atmospherics and blazing blastbeats of “Nadir” or the soothing ambience and emotive singing of “Idiomorph” – sound exactly alike, further emphasising the constant push and pull, and the engaging ebb and flow, of the music.
True, there’s potentially an argument to be made that going from the absolutely colossal crescendo of “Zenith” (which serves as a sort of “false ending” for the album) into the proggy, almost Post-Metal textured finale of “Dissolve” (which also features a soaring guest spot from Kardashev‘s Mark Garrett) is… shall we say, a hat on a hat… but it’s a probably a little churlish of me to complain about getting too much of a good thing at this point.
And, make no mistake, Amnesia is a very good thing indeed… and not on you’re likely to forget in a hurry.