Monolithe celebrates its tenth album.
A lot has changed in two years for this band from the Paris region. Sylvain Bégot (guitar/keyboards, ex-Anthemon), Benoît Blin (guitar, Devianz) and Thibault Faucher (drums) welcomed Quentin Verdier (vocals, Acedia Mundi), Vincent Rémon (guitar, Devianz) and Axel Hurard (keyboards, Promethean, live for Sanctuary) to give life to Black Hole District, released by Hammerheart Records.
The album’s format is simple enough to understand: five one-minute introductions, each followed by a ten-minute track. An intriguing choice, but one that helps create a mysterious atmosphere that begins with They Wake Up at Dusk, a relatively luminous and soothing first track, followed by Sentience Amidst the Lights, which immediately darkens and lets a sampled voice guide us between the hits. A melancholic impressive rhythm takes its place slowly, before finally meeting the hypnotic leads and saturated vocal parts, which occasionally turn into a few softer interventions, but the sound eventually fades out before giving way to Elusive Whispers, where keyboards build a fairly modern ambience up. A few peaks of gentleness carry us through to To Wander the Labyrinth, where we sense that the riffs are preparing for heavier tones as they progress, leaving the guitars to provide jerky patterns, but deliverance comes when the vocalist roars again, backed by a heavy rhythm section. Clean vocals help temporizing violence, bringing more airy nuances to the sometimes oppressive sound, which is tinged with melodious harmonics before anchoring itself in heaviness once more, but there’s a kind of renewed energy towards the final leading to Suspicion, where sampled vocals joins fairly minimalist sounds. The guitars soon return on Unveiling the Illusion, creating the aggressive touch that tinges the soothing keyboard strings with haunting patterns that also nuance certain vocal appearances, not to mention the more brutal ones. The track is one of the steamiest on the album, but flares up towards the end, finally giving way to Benefit or Hazard, where anxiety is imperceptibly reborn, paving the way for the Gothic influences of On the Run to Nowhere, where enchanting harmonics naturally envelop the musicians’ progress. A more intriguing passage allows the band to take the pressure off, but it resurfaces to accompany the vociferations on the final, followed by the spacey accents of Moonfall, which makes a perfect transition to Those Moments Lost in Time and its painful melancholy, expressed once again with a listless slowness. where saturated and clear vocals take turns. The melodies accompany us into slightly faster moments, but always anchored in a kind of drowsy torpor before returning to silence, guided by the sampled vocals.
Black Hole District is a relatively regular album, but a very rich one that really deserves to be heard. Although half the line-up has been renewed, Monolithe retains its soul and its soaring approach that easily fascinates us.
85/100
