Saturday 15 June 2019

All Monsters - S/T (Album Review)


Release date: April 30th 2019. Label: Self Released. Format: CD/DD

All Monsters – Tracklisting

1.Social Battery 03:24
2.Preoccupation 02:04
3.Loophole 03:38
4.January 03:09
5.Optimize 04:18
6.Deadpan 02:48
7.Monster 04:41

Members

All music, voice, production and engineering by All Monsters

Review

Greetings All,

Earlier this year I came across an interesting black metal demo from a band called Vide. I found this band to be an extremely prolific individual from Texas/Louisiana. The man who is Vide has at least 5 different projects in motion at any given time. One of those projects really snagged my ear. That being his self described Black n Roll project All Monsters. This self titled record takes an intriguing approach of mixing black metal vocals and guitars and mixing them up with pieces of indie and alternative rock.

Social Battery opens the record with an old school punk rock feel. Preoccupation kicks in brutal blackened screams over a mid tempo indie rock guitar riff and driving drum beat. A mid 90’s indie rock groove intertwined with distant guttural screams gives Loophole an unsettling charm.

January is reminiscent of what The Replacements or late 80’s REM may have sounded like if only they had listened to heavy metal and not Big Star. Some dissonant indie rock guitar work drives the stellar Optimize. A mellow, clean guitar and straight forward drum beat open the intense Deadpan that explodes with fierce blackened screams that give the song an alluring off kilter feel. The record closes with the massive guitar sound and uptempo driving drums of  Monster that mixes in an almost detached set of vocals and some Sonic Youth inspired guitar work. A fitting close to an intense debut.

All Monsters presents an intriguing, lo-fi piece of killer rock. This is indeed Black N Roll, I am a fan and am super psyched to hear what Vide and all his projects has in store for us in the future. Do yourself a favor and Dig on this one! 


- Todd S - Instagram @alltheghoststhathauntyou

Words by Todd Stealey


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