Monopium - The Goat and the Dead Horses' Circus

I really don't feel like dabbling too much on a biography on this solo project, so I will just let you know that Zoharum Records's home page has a very nice description of the project, and to both support the label and the project, you should really check out their home page. Needless to say, what I do find myself listening to is a chilling, albeit okay album filled with lots of experimentation and ambience.

I mainly want to stick with the songs on the album that really stuck out to me, for the rest were ones that I just could not really talk about, for they leave me feeling fairly neutral and apathetic. So, to begin off, let me speak of Piramidy, the third track on the album. It has a very creepy atmosphere, with lyrics and a lot of other sounds being made to sound like they are all in reverse; it almost creates a backwards sort of reality kind of feel, and comes out awesome.

Now, the next song also hit me hard, and made me put on a morbid smile, as the title of the song is Dead Horses' Circus. It had me smirking for, as the song progressed, the sound of a shotgun being loaded was put to use. And, as many may know, when a horse became too old to hold its own any longer, it was blasted to death. However, aside from the clever use of the shotgun analogy, the tune was definitely inspired by a circus, but was extremely repetitive and would have served well in a horror movie. I can't say it served me all too well in the album.

Lights & Serpentines definitely reminded me of a distorted black and white military promotional movie from the fifties, but left me feeling very uneasy. This is by far a good thing; it leaves me feeling like there's something wrong, for as cheerful and morally boosting as the song is supposed to be, it's just has a dark and twisted turn to it.

Alright, now for some bad. The tenth track on the album was mainly noise, and is titled Sotto il Sole del Mondo, and was horrifying to me. Not the good kind of horrifying, the bad kind. The noise wasn't all too great at all. The only thing it succeeded at was making me want to press the skip button. However, since I am a reviewer, I had to force myself not to do such a heinous act and work my way through the rest of the song. The only bit that I did enjoy about it was the eight second silence at the forty second mark. Everything else just annoyed me in one way or the other.

However, other than these four songs, nothing really stood out to me. The rest were just mediocre, and for me to sit here and say, "This one was okay," over and over for the remaining eight songs I have yet to touch upon would be both a waste of my and your time. And, of the four songs that I did mention, one was garbage, another was decent, and the other two were inspiring. So, while most of the album was just alright, only a small percentage of it was really enjoyable. I mean, there are a lot of unique aspects about these guys, but for me, it just wasn't pulled off very well. Sep 06 2013