MONSTROID - Set 2 Burnt Sky (Album Review) And Exclusive Album Premiere of SET 2: BURNT SKY

Release date: January 22nd 2021. Label: Self Released. Format: DD

Set 2: Burnt Sky – Tracklisting

1.Hyper Fuzz
2.Take Me
3.Shadow Beast
4.Fall In Line
5.Navigator 2
6.Black River
7.Dust From Bones
8.No Glory
9.Burnt Sky

Artists on the album:

Lead Guitar and Lead Vocals: Wayne Hendrikz
Bass and Backing Vocals: Larry Leyden
Drums and Percussion: Steven Jacobson
Rhythm Guitars, Percussion and Backing Vocals: Andrew Pullen

Additional Artists on the album:

George van der Spuy on keys (Taxi Violence): Take Me
Matthew Pullen (Rooikat) on Backing Vocals: Shadow Beast

Review

South African Stoner Rock scene is starting to come on leaps and bounds over the last few years with bands such as Ruff Majik making a name for themselves. Time to add another cool band to the mix with MONSTROID. The band play a heavy and stylish mix of Desert Rock, Fuzz Rock and Stoner Metal with a more Sci-fi based twist.

With inspiration from bands such as KYUSS, FU MANCHU, Karma To Burn and Monster Magnet, MONSTROID are firmly in the driving seat forging out their own career and psychedelic heavy sound. Their new album – Set 2: Burnt Sky – whilst nothing groundbreaking does see the band playing heavier and fuzzier sounds compared to their world famous musical peers.

Set 2: Burnt Sky contains 9 songs and runs for 46 minutes and the listener is treated to wild mix of 90s Desert Rock, Fuzz Rock and Stoner Metal with a soaring Psychedelic Spaced Out vibe. The vocals are constantly engaging from Wayne on Lead Vocals with Larry and Andrew providing excellent backing vocals throughout the album.

There is an addictive Alt Rock flow to this album and MONSTROID write spiky and rebellious lyrics with a certain Dave Wnydorf flavour to them especially on the earlier stages of the album impressing the most with songs such as: Take Me, Shadow Beast and Fall in Line.

MONSTROID play a classic and vintage style of Stoner Rock/Metal that we all know and love but this is still an exciting and jam-packed album to listen to with the band trying different things. They’ve added Keyboards on the standout track – Take Me. It’s quite boisterous and rebellious within the strands of Stoner Rock/Metal.

Things can be quite experimental in places but it’s a good mix and a great Desert, Fuzz or Stoner based groove is never too far behind. Add lively production vibes and Set 2: Burnt Sky is a great album for MONSTROID to fully get noticed within the global Desert/Stoner Metal community.

Other cool songs to check out are: Navigator 2, Black River and Dust From Bones.

This is quite the action-packed Stoner Metal package with the band impressing from start to finish. So get on board with the MONSTROID train. As these guys mean SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Excellent and Highly Recommended.

Words by Steve Howe

You can hear the album exclusively with this cool album premiere thanks to the cool folks at Plug Music Agency.

Thanks to Warren at Plug Music Agency for everything. 

Set 2: Burning Sky will be available to buy on DD from Friday January 22nd 2021.

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Monstroid release the video for Fall In Line from their upcoming new album - SET 2: BURNT SKY

Cape Town based desert rock unit Monstroid have released the video for Fall In Line, the second single taken from their forthcoming full-length album Set 2: Burnt Sky. The band is the passion project of 4 friends born out of a deeply shared appreciation for writing, making, and sharing tectonic plate-shifting music. From the rumbling depths emerges a melodic molten soundscape. From the skies a flaming fireball of fuzz. Monstroid resides where these forces collide. Born in the 80's, raised in the 90’s we have focused our music around the Movies, TV shows and Toys of the time. Our musical influences are no different.

For lovers of growling guitars, distorted groove laden bass, melodic vocals and exploding drums of thunder.

The video was directed by Fred van Leeuwen, a photographer and filmmaker currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. Fred started as a band photographer in 2009, which later evolved into the world of shooting music videos. By 2020, Fred's worked with various local bands, such as The Black Cat Bones, Van Coke Kartel, Vulvodynia and Albert Frost to name a few.

For his full body of work, you can visit www.theimageengineer.com

Fred delves into the history behind the making of the video, “ I approached Monstroid a while back regarding a music video I wanted to shoot to test a specific budget-friendly 50mm f/1.8 Anamorphic lens from Sirui. I thought it would look great to have a band in an underground car park, lit only by car headlights, to show off the lens's anamorphic characteristics, such as the beautiful streaky lens flares and fantastic low light performance. 

The performance scene was shot with the help of Stian Maritz on his camera, which helped a lot in the edit to splice between band members disappearing and reappearing when cutting between our cameras. Once we wrapped the performance, we spoke about adding a narrative to the music video. We felt the song is a perfect soundtrack to escape the city's noise and head out to the countryside, and decided to shoot some scenes out on Clarence Drive and the Overberg to establish that narrative between the performance shots fully. Special thanks to Willem at Sunshine Co for providing the Sirui lens to test out for this music video.”

The band are more than happy with the final result and they explain, “For the second song from our upcoming record Set 2: Burnt Sky, we thought we give you one of our Live show favourites, which is a song we have been playing for a bit. It’s been such a pleasure crafting and completing it and when The Image Engineer, Fred van Leewen, contacted us with an idea for the track, we had to jump on board. The song is fast paced and mixed in with tight editing and some epic shots in and around Cape Town, we could not be happier with the result.”

Fall in Line is taken from their upcoming album Set 2: Burnt Sky set for release on the 22nd January 2021. Pre-save and pre-orders start today, 18th December 2020.

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South African Desert Rock four-piece Monstroid reveal video for new single Shadow Beast

South African desert rock four-piece Monstroid reveal video for new single Shadow Beast

Monstroid is the passion project of 4 friends from Cape Town, born out of a deeply shared appreciation for writing, making, and sharing tectonic plate-shifting music. From the rumbling depths emerges a melodic molten soundscape. From the skies a flaming fireball of fuzz. Monstroid resides where these forces collide. For lovers of growling guitars, distorted groove laden bass, melodic vocals and exploding drums of thunder.

“It’s been one hell of a journey since our last album. The world has changed in so many ways, but one thing that remained was our love for making music. We have been busy making music videos, lockdown videos, playthroughs and putting the final touches on our second studio album.” – Andrew Pullen, guitars. 

During the final phase of the album completion, the band were invited to feature on Mongrel Records' FANGS Volume 2, a compilation of killer heavy music from the African continent. They humbly accepted and submitted Shadow Beast for an exclusive early release. The band are excited to share the epic video the track today.

“The childhoods of all four Monstroid members were filled with movies, TV and music from the 80's, which inspires many of the themes and content of the music. Shadow Beast is no exception, with Conan The Destroyer's battle with Toth-Amon being the inspiration behind the track (and the video).” - Monstroid

Shadow Beast is taken from their upcoming album Set 2: Burnt Sky set for release on the 22nd January 2021. Pre-save and pre-orders start on the 18th December 2020.

Shadow Beast is available on all digital platforms including Bandcamp | Spotify | Deezer  | Apple Music

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