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Review: 'Mononoké'
'Tom Finigan EP'   


-  Genre: 'Post-Rock' -  Release Date: '21st April 2014'

Our Rating:
York-based instrumental trio Mononoké come recommended for fans of Don Caballero, Meet me in St. Louis, King Crimson, Battles, Rush, Ruins, Terra Melos. They’ve pulled out all the stops for their debut offering, commandeering James Plotkin, renowned for mastering albums released for labels like Hydra Head, Ipecac, Kranky and Relapse, to master their own tapes.

Across the four tracks they demonstrate a musical competence and compositional maturity that’s impressive. The ultra-noodly guitar parts on opener ‘Liz Prince’ twist and tumble, stutter and jumble to spin intricately-woven patterns.

They resist the urge to blast the listener with noise, instead preferring to tease by pulling away from obvious crescendo points midway through a drum fill. But they still achieve moments of blistering intensity; the frenetic fretwork and rocket-powered rhythms on ‘Happy Trails, Hans’ are positively explosive, the detail remarkable.

They’re unashamedly prog in their approach, and overt in their adoption of jazz tropes within their taut and brain-crowdingly dense math-rock epyllia.

They do actually rock, too; there are some brief interludes of straight-ahead driving powerchords on Leonardo Di Caprisun (a title That Fucking Tank are probably kicking themselves for not thinking up), but it’s only on the final track, ‘Kilgore Trout’ they really let fly, and when they do it comes out of nowhere, achieving maximum impact.

It’s intelligent, articulate stuff, that balances headspinning complexity with listenability. Definitely recommended.

Mononoké Online
  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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Mononoké - Tom Finigan EP