I can give you a brief review of the Monarch gig on Sunday 22nd too:
It was very very good, much better than I thought it might be.
Is that too brief? perhaps. I'll elaborate a little more, I was a tiny bit skeptical (ok, a LOT) because while I do like doom metal, I do like noise/drone in small doses, I do NOT like female vocalists (as a general rule). Ooooh aren't I contraversial? Well bring on the complaints. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the female voice, it's just I've never really heard any in metal that I like. But back to the gig, it was $15, which I would have happily paid for Agents of Abhorrence, 1 of 4 support bands that night. The others (whose names escape me for the time being) were mainly drone/doom/experimental, and pretty good at what they did I thought. Then Monarch came on stage, and it was a sloooooooowwwww loooooooooowwwww dooooooooooommmmyyy sludgy sonic booooooooooom, and I was very pleased to hear the vocals were painful, anguished screams and howls, that sounded more like they were from some kind of beast than the petite little French girl that was creating them. Admittedly, there were a LOT of effects used (echoes, loops, distortions, who knows? I'm too dumb to know that's for sure) but either way it was incredibly harsh and powerful (she was holding the mic about 1 1/2 feet away from her mouth and it was still picking it up loudly!!!). A very heavy and intense set lasting around 45 minutes I think, I believe it was 2 songs (1 album) but I could well be wrong. Then bring on the encore, and it was a Discharge (or one of those Dis-crust bands anyway) cover which worked surprisingly well! Wasn't slowed down too much, still kept all the disortion and thankfully the vocals didn't go all sweet and angelic or anything stupid like that. All in all a great gig, I now own the "Dead Men Tell No Tales" double album compilation and a Monarch shirt (was disappointed that it wasn't a tour shirt, but how do you say no to a shirt with a burning church???)
Intensions were there to go see them again the following Saturday, but it just didn't happen. An etched tour 7" was being purchased on my behalf though (thanks John!!), looking forward to that!
Blahhh, longest bloody blog I've ever done. Thanks Heathen Skulls. Go listen to Monarch
And listen in on Wednesday night, should be back to the weekly Grind...
Oh yeah http://www.3ser.org.au - Click LISTEN LIVE! at 21:00 AEST
