It may sound like a contradiction in terms but Monolithe is progressive doom with the emphasis on the word progressive. Take their 2012 album, the excellent ‘III’, which was my first encounter with Monolithe and the first time I reviewed one of their albums for this very site. It combined some of the best elements of doom – crushingly heavy music to lose yourself in – while bringing in some very un-doomlike elements. At times Monolithe is almost groovy in its head banging use of the kind of melody that you just don’t find in the genre. But all the while band mastermind Sylvain Bégot morphs the arrangements so, almost imperceptibly, you’re never hearing the same thing twice. It’s clever stuff, at the very least, and at times marvellous to behold. What’s more Zeta Reticuli continues the fun without even skipping a beat.
Well, when I say fun, Monolithe still remains steadfastly rooted in doom. At times more of a funeral doom sound, at times more like doom-death, but it’s also fair to say you’d be forgiven for forgetting you were listening to doom altogether. Zeta Reticuli is the second part in a series that began with Epsilon Aurigae released six months ago. The first of the three fifteen minute tracks is fairly typical Monolithe. Ecumenopolis is a chugging exploration that perhaps rather unnecessarily sets the scene for the album before plumbing the depths with the far more cosmic and ambient – although still skyscraper-crushingly heavy – second track TMA-1 (presumably linked to TMA-0 from Epsilon Aurigae). Shades of 2001: A Space Odyssey, some soaring guitar solos and a final spinning finale before opening the third and final track which also has some of the unexpected surprises we’ve come to expect from Monolithe.
The first and foremost of those is the inclusion of (and I guess I should put a spoiler alert in here because it was, for me at least, totally unexpected from a band that has hitherto relied on the deepest, most funereal of doom vocals) a guest vocalist. Guyom Pavesi’s appearance coincides with the arrival of a more traditional metal sound to the band – I hesitate to call it power metal, unless you (like me) consider the likes of Angel Dust to be that. But it brings yet more welcome hues to the band’s sound.
Unlike Epsilon Aurigae (which is probably my favourite Monolithe album so far and the one which caused the most immediate impact on me) there are things on Zeta Reticuli I would happily have listened to a lot more of and there’s some I feel could have been toned back. But to say I’d like to hear more of this, that or the other from Monolithe is to slightly miss the point. Monolithe isn’t a band to just serve some stodge up on a plate and leave you to gorge yourself. It tends to give you ‘not enough’ of an awful lot and yet at the same time the band spoils you rotten with almost too much of everything. Its sound is unmistakably its own and when it borrows or plunders from others it manages to do so without looking like it has done so because it’s bereft of ideas.
There’s a feast to be had here even though it’s probably not as trippy and kaleidoscopic as one or two of Monolithe’s other platters in other ways it delivers on an incendiary level. How much you actually take away from Monolithe is, as usual, kind of up to you. But this is a band that never does anything by halves and will reward anyone who opens themselves up to the opportunities.
(8/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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