Exponents of technical death metal, Monachopsis, have arrived with a debut EP that surprises, not least because it harks back to the dark and dirty days of Darkthrone’s experimentation with that genre, rather than focus upon the studio-polished brutality that has become more prominent in recent years. A potent whiff of sulphur hangs over this recording with its bone-dry screams and cacophonous percussion, with only the solos rising out of the morass to batter the listener over the head with any clarity. Not that this is a bad thing – fans of Autopsy and Aborted will go a bundle on this – but it is surprising when one considers the rather more polished bands that Monachopsis list as influences. However, where Monachopsis stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their chosen peers is their technical ability, which is impressive right from the off, and which makes this six-track EP, a defiantly old-school monster that is well worth your time.
A lengthy opener, ‘In the Moonlit Divide’ serves as a powerful calling card with its technically impressive harmonised solos and churning riffs all crafting a downward spiral towards Mihir’s hell-bound vocals. The sound is… well, the band’s sonic characteristics are horrible in exactly the right way, capturing the raw unkempt vibe of early death metal, but maintaining enough clarity in the instrumentation that you can easily hear what’s going on. Eschewing the gleaming surfaces for which much of modern day death metal aims, it adheres to the rough ‘n’ ready sound of bands like Autopsy, even sneaking in a touch of melody to keep things memorable as well as brutal. ‘An altered plane’ is potent in its fury, but excels when it comes to the heroic soloing (courtesy of Richard Allsop and Kieran Hickman) that scars the surface of its latter stages. None of which prepares you for the dizzying whirlwind of percussive blasts and icy riffing that announces the arrival of the aptly-titled ‘scathed by branches of malice’. An album highlight, it sounds like a riot has erupted in your living room and, after endless amounts of distressingly ‘safe’ music, it’s nice to hear something so unerringly brutal delivered with such obvious and malicious glee.
Maintaining their predilection for whimsical song titles, Monachopsis deliver a short, sharp shock with ‘star harvest’, a sci-fi infused, warp-speed trip around the solar system on the back of a stripped down nuclear missile. With the band dealing in controlled chaos and Mihir not so much attempting to summon the devil as his own intestinal tract, ‘star harvest’ is a seriously unhinged track and it almost comes as a relief when ‘the undying’ emerges amidst the clattering cacophony of Ezra Brown’s insane percussion to ground things with an icy blast of potent black metal fury. The EP comes to its cataclysmic conclusion with the prog-infused epic ‘the god project’ which incorporates (whisper it) clean tones, the piece come off as the bastard son of ‘Chop Suey!’ and ‘blinded by fear’ (and if you can actually imagine what that sounds like without hearing this song then… well done!) It’s a suitably ambitious conclusion to an EP that, for all its bludgeoning power, still manages to temper all but its most extreme moments with a sense of melody and dynamic.
It should go without saying that Monachopsis are not for the faint of heart. Their sound is as raw, in-your-face and brutal as an inner-city bar fight. To these ears it recalls the stripped-down minimalism that was common in the days of tape trading and it has a lived-in authenticity that no amount of studio-polish can ever hope to approximate. It ain’t pretty, it’s probably clever and it is a damned impressive start. 8
Find out more via the band’s Facebook page here.
