Labels: self released
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I got a letter with this, it said that they had taken all the criticism they received for their previous release seriously and worked to improve their song writing. Which is fair enough, but I’d have figured that my review wasn’t really a trigger to send something else in for review. Monsters continues in the template for the original album. That template is: GRUNGE REVIVAL, MOTHER FUCKER. The issue they have isn’t the song writing, it’s still that the slow songs really aren’t that exciting. To me at least. The fast stuff is still fairly enjoyable, but I have a hard time with the vocals which are generally somewhere between Billie Joe Armstrong and Arctic Monkeys. For people into the band, I am pretty sure they’d be able to identify the progression, but it must have been 2 years since I heard the last CD and I can’t remember it at all other than it kind of sounded pretty similar to this. I did like the ponderous intro to “Pillage the Village”, before it bounces off excitably. Moments like that are a bit few and far between though.
What would I tell these dudes? I would tell them to go listen to Ordination of Aaron’s album “Immersion in a 90Mph World”. Play grunge like that. Of course, this will alienate you your entire fan base, but hey. Apologies to the band, I appreciate you sent this, I like the fact that you did even, as you only have 15 listeners on last.fm, and it’s pretty impressive given that you have managed 2 tours and garnered some local respect. It’s just that this isn’t quite the website to give you useful feedback I’m afraid.