Review Summary: Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.
Post Rock is such a tragic genre. Consisting of a cluster-*** of bands who all deny association with the genre, who deal with emotions instead of lyrics and epiphanies instead of hooks. It's an useless arms race on who can make the most dramatic crescendo, or who can most fully develop the sound of Slint, or who could be the first to form an original thesis on how post-rock music should be done. Regardless of how you look at it, these bands are trapped in the shadow of there contemporaries, and none of them have fully found there way out. Yet despite this, Post-Rock has a unique potential,it doesn't happen often but some post rock albums have a way of shaking your entire soul, of making sunlight feel like a cold breeze, and a cold breeze feel like spring. Of making dust float in slow motion, of making your heart pump something other than blood, until your gasping for air. We consumers of the genre all know the feeling, some post-rock albums cut right too your core. But there are very few albums in any genre like this one, that is, there are very few albums that actually define you.
It begins with the slow crawl of violins, repeating a cryptic theme to a minimalistic degree. Over and over layer after layer of strings slowly mount. It's an odd choice for Mono, a band known for wasting no time in releasing there melodramatic explosions, to start their collaboration with WEG with 25 minutes a creeping violin, a haunting dirge in neo-classical. But as the strings swell, you lose yourself. It's a haunting peace, a calm panic,a palmless prayer, as tension quietly builds, and then silently slips away. The melody shifts yet it seems to remain the same, underneath the strings WEG builds a haunting electronic atmosphere, as the orchestra swells and fades away, swells and fades away, until it sinks away into silence.
And then from the resulting silence, guitar chords bursting with emotion calmly dig to the surface, again repeating, again slowly developing, strings overlap in the background, drums enter the fray and then something explodes. A collision, A subway train off-railes, lightning strikes the sky, heavy winds push forward, and distortion envelopes everything. Mono's first crescendo is one of the angriest they've done, as the tension slowly developing over the first thirty minutes bursts. If the first thirty minutes were the palmless prayer, these seven are the mass murder. Life is tenuous, life is hopeless, and lights dim, as your carried away in the resentful surrender.
After the crescendo, piano calmly drifts in, vocal samples drown underneath the piano beckoning you down to their depths. Of the entire album this section seems the most forgetful, of all the formula's the two bands employ, this seems the most used, but just like any post-rock album ,they don't need to reinvent anything, they just need to take you into it's atmosphere. And once again you find tension building and quietly bursting, The song slowly gives way to the conclusion, it's the day before judgement, the breath before your last breath.
And then the final 20 minutes change everything. the mournful atmosphere of the album suddenly changes, the piano keys become optimistic, hopeful. For the first time you see light in it's eyes, as the album slowly gazes into heaven. And Mono slowly builds into it's final climax, yet this one's different, sunlight is bursting through the skies, gardens are blooming, birds call overhead, and the drums pound yet again underneath. Your heart beat seems estatic, and again The album explodes, and maybe life is more than just vain attempts to fly, and everything was worth it, It's the birth of a child, the first light after a coma, your life's Deus Ex Machina, as sorrow and hope intertwine as the music suddenly churn into silence. It's Mono's loudest crescendo in their discography, and I would argue it's their best.
Mono and World's End Girlfriend's collaboration use the same conventions as any other Post Rock album, but post-rock was never about originality. Granted this album has more influences than most works in the genre, Phillip Glass and Brian Eno make their appearance along with GYBE, but all the same, the two bands don't display any ingenuity. the thing is, this album doesn't need to deal in innovation, like all great post-rock albums it deals with something deeper. Revelation.
Everything is poetic, and nothing ever ends.
