Labels: Tiny Engines
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I guess this is going to be a super rambly review, but this album gives me a good opportunity to do a “state of the ‘mo” address. Because I was just watching a bit of “Killing a Camera”, and thinking how super awkward the interview parts of it were, with those Braid guys sitting around, chewing nails, trying to avoid eye contact with the camera, just saying diplomatic shit, when the body language suggests otherwise, that the band is a mess and they don’t want to be sitting there talking about Braid – “We’ve taken this band as far as we can go”. Like that was ever part of the equation, Braid wasn’t a sports team, they weren’t losing in the Super Bowl year after year. Or maybe that’s why Bob is wearing a Buffalo Bills t-shirt. Then they cut to the songs, and the Braid guys are killing it in a cramped Fireside Bowl, and I’m wishing I was there, as they hit song after song after song. It’s perfect. I think back to when I saw them in London. It’s still the best show I ever was at. And I wonder. Because for me, no band playing emo is ever going to be as good as Braid, or the Promise Ring, or Christie Front Drive. It’s impossible. There are still emo bands out there that connect, and they are perhaps more mature sounding than Monument, and that there’s the clincher. I think that if you like this style of music, then the band that means the most to you is probably going to be made up of people who are your age. Because you can read the lyrics and find something that resonates within or maybe they just have this weird, indescribable aura that feels right. That feels like me. Those bands feel like me. They are all hugely important for me and there is something within them that appeals to a part of my brain that I can’t identify or remotely put into words. Like because people from the bands I love are the same sort of age as me, maybe there is some sort of strange, incomprehensible link. Or maybe it’s just growing old. Because listening to a band like Monument, who are hugely competent, reproducing the sounds that defined a part of my life, it just sounds like music and nothing more. There is no link here for me. The lyrics mean nothing to me. There are guys playing pretty guitar parts, playing some trumpet, pinching bits from Braid and Cap’n Jazz and melding them with something fresher, something newer. Yet it all just washes over me. This is good, solid music, but I feel disheartened because shit, this band is an emo band and it can’t be a crucial part of my life any more. That’s gone forever. And it just confirms that everyone has to move on sooner or later. Goes Canoeing is a really decent record, it’s not the album I wanted Monument to make, it’s too polished and has gang vocals, but it is plenty fun and if you are the same age as these people and are looking for an emo band to grab hold of your soul and make you feel alive, then you have found the right record. These guys nail it. Listen to this rather than the old bastards from over a decade ago. But for me… this ain’t me. This is youthful and a distorted reflection of something that’s gone for good. It’s music versus the heart, and the heart is winning out, as it forever should. I have my memories, and listening to a band that sounds like this is wrong in 2011 when 1998 defined so much.