Band of the Day: Monolyth

Monolyth - OriginHopefully still riding the wave from the release of their debut album, Origin, on October 10th, today’s Band of the Day hail from Portugal. For those who like their music very heavy indeed, but still with an element of groove, this group could be right up your darkly-lit, scary street.

Guitarist Tiago Martins and drummer Victor Butuc formed the band in around 2009. After playing together and jamming for some months, the search for a lead vocalist started and ended up with (MP) Marcelo taking the place, followed by their first bass player Pedro Maia and guitarist Gonçalo Lemos. Following Maia’s departure in February 2012, João Mota joined band. After playing the songs that would end up in their first album for about a year and a half, they experienced yet another line-up change and David Alves becomes the band’s new bass player in July 2013.

As with many bands these days, they cite a multitude of influences. You can hear where they’ve taken a particular sound on board – say some Gojira – and slapped on a coating from somewhere else (Meshuggah) , then deep fried it with some oily Lamb (of God).

Why do I always go or food metaphors? It’s gone midnight and now I’m hungry. Anyway…

Origin runs for eleven tracks and features guest appearances from the likes of André Macedo (Colosso) and Andrés Malta (Munchies). It is wonderfully heavy and hits you like a Sherman tank filled with bricks.

But it’s not all pummelling noise. There are plenty of more melodic breaks to stop the sound getting too repetitive, and more hooks than a bargain fishing shop trying to sell up before the season ends.

Stand-out track, for me, is number two – “The Exile”. it just touches all the bases in the band’s sound and is the best one from the album for giving you a flavour of what they’re all about.

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