MONO – OATH
Release Date: 14th June 2024
Label: Pelagic Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Post-Rock, Experimental, Instrumental.
FFO: Explosions In the Sky, This Will Destroy You, Caspian.
Review By: Andy Spoon
4-piece Japanese post-rock outfit MONO is set to release their long awaited 12th studio album, OATH, on June 14th, on Pelagic Records. Inspired by the existential crises of the pandemic, a perfect writing subject, MONO explores the thin lines between light and darkness, the late-night questions, the desire for understanding in a seemingly-endless doldrum of fear, stagnancy, and the imminence of change with the band’s own theoretical thematic mantra of “what are we doing here”?
The entire process of using a non-lyrical album to create a telling atmosphere is something that takes ambiguous shapes, forces us to open our minds (maybe chemically), and to express our feelings through sound and not words. As a result, several things become more apparent to us, just as losing one sense tends to heighten others. Mainly, we tend to become sensitive to dynamic shifts in volume, intensity, and repetition. The audience is often not allowed to skip around, waiting for their favorite parts, lines, or hooks. Instead, they must endure the patterns and swells, the drops and lulls, the crescendos and outtros.
MONO starts the album with soft pads and even softer synth patterns that use the delay echoes to create a massive feeling of space, something that is pertinent to creating an atmosphere indicative of “bigness”, implying the eternal, perhaps, the largeness of the universe, the sky, a large room, if you will. The psychological effect of the massive reverb and delay tends to give the audience the feeling that they are exploring cavernous spaces or traveling long distances, obviously the intent of so-many post-rock bands, who’ve spent decades trying to emulate MONO’s sounds.
In between longer tracks, OATH features gentle, repetitive arpeggios, repeating phrases that tend to draw the listener into a light trance, almost sleep-inducing, the way a hypnotist wants to get the subject comfortable before starting the mental exploration. Sometimes, creating a proper environment in a movement is the way to speak the non-lyrical language, so I made sure to give the interlude tracks as much attention as the longer, more-defined tracks, making sure to give them the proper credit as a set-up to the marquee pieces of the album.
OATH is broken up into movements where there is a long track that tends to be similar to other tracks, often having an intro or interlude track. On an album with 11 tracks, it’s more likely that there are really 4-5 tracks, including their associated interludes and intro/outro movement pieces. This is useful in helping break the album down into smaller pieces for analysis or enjoyment. I have shared this experience with several other instrumental albums, something that I think makes a post-rock album an enjoyable listen as it tends to allow a listener to be on board for smaller amounts of time than a whole LP, but certainly longer than one 4-minute track. I’ve timed many a relaxing car ride with a few contiguous tracks from a great LP.
Listening to the album, I became extremely sentimental about things, maybe even hopeful. The great big boomy symphonics and the wash riding drums combined with the massive reverb and delayed guitars create a swelling feeling of wholeness at some moments, filling me up with positivity, something that I don’t often get from instrumental post-rock, which, more-often, trades musical positivity for tension, explosiveness, and emotions. Hear The Wind was an especially-moving track to experience, as I was really drawn into the overall peacefulness, even at the higher-volume crescendo moments.
When post-rock artists start and resolve on the major keys, tracks can display a range of emotional wholeness, beauty, and worshipful completion. To what? I think that MONO wants us to feel that completeness from within, to explore that internal desire to meditate on the light, to find the peace and spirit that connects us to the infinite, however that may be. I was moved by the atmosphere and the lullaby-like movements that transported my brain to places of relaxation and hopefulness, rather than experiencing feelings of intensity or tension. Contextualizing this album as a COVID-derived product is somewhat-confusing, as most of the albums I’ve reviewed which had come from that place are dark, hopeless, and often dread the existential meaninglessness of a world in turmoil.
This album was just absolutely excellent. I think these guys 100% killed it with OATH. Suffice to say, there’s just a lot of “life” on this album. They really seem to get how to draw the emotional side of the post-rock stuff out. It’s really not like Explosions In The Sky, though, being a little more “shoegazey” than that. EITS seem to try and bring you a really similar dynamic in each song. In contrast, these guys seem to have mastered the expressive nature of the music, rather than the methodical approach to building energy, like one might see in other post-rock, post-metal acts. If anything, it’s a sign of maturity, perhaps.
Overall, I was very happy with OATH, as it tended to be an experience that was evocative of positivity and wholeness, something that I really wasn’t expecting. The blend of live orchestral instruments, excellent dynamic range, and the emotionally-charged instrumentation gives OATH a great argument to be on repeat on your device, but only if you want to seek a positive and welcoming atmosphere, as it’s definitely the opposite of the aggressive music we tend to listen to, here. I was really happy that I was able to experience this album and share my opinions on it, something that I don’t often have the ability to say often. MONO has still got it, and OATH is their ticket to show you why.
(4.5 / 5)
