Brew Records do not do ordinary music. In their growing roster, THESE MONSTERS are at the luxurious end of extraordinary. Even their screaming is beautifully recorded and full throated. Guitar, bass (Ian Thirkill) and saxophone blend and swap riffs like finely engineered components in a very brutal machine. Percussion (Tommy Davidson) is meticulously outrageous - no careless cymbal fills, no muddying double pedalling, in fact no shit at all.
Across eight pieces, with the scabrous interlude of "Biggie and Tupack" marking a half way pause for breath, there is a classical scale of composition that fully intends a listener to stay with the music from beginning to end. Noticing thematic continuity and artful sequencing is entirely unnecessary of course - the exuberant sensationalism is quite enough to satisfy. Nevertheless, there is mastery at work in these musicianly heads.
Post rock clichés are happily absent. Slow crescendos and drone-like repetitions are foresworn. At the heart of every track are monster riffs and fluent, rasping phrases that go on and on mutating and slamming into blaring high points where everything in the band explodes together. Gaps there are none. Cunningly, the extreme outbursts are given plenty of air in the playing and in the mix so that the ear really gets the thrill of sudden exposure. Whenever a riff comes in it is played with such manic precision that it really bites. The eruptions of saxophone and synth (Jonny Farrell) and squealing guitar (Sam Pryor) are a very distinctive trademark. This is not a band you would mistake for anyone else.
"Call Me Dragon" is the permanently memorable opening track - a beautifully realised slab of (serious) prog rock litany with Sam Pryor's deranged vocals swooping across the band like evil birds from a dark sky. Despite the madness, it has a masterful balance and poise, As it’s last notes are strewn out, "Dirty Messages" that follows seems to pick one out on guitar and sprint on with eight minutes of similar bravado. Such baton passing is one of These Monsters' happy themes.
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"Who is the Tall Sick Man" is thunderous, even blundering. "Harry Patton" follows the break in exaggerated and delayed echo but the following "Space Ritual" goes somewhere totally different, with synths lifting it off from the dying notes of "Harry Patton" and giving Tommy Davidson some serious work to do on the drum kit. By the end of that one the band are deconstructing glockenspiel against a granite cliff of guitar chords. At the end of it all, the funky sound of "Deaf Machine" feels like a pop song. But only for a couple of bars. The fists are raised and it's every air guitar for itself as the tune plunges on to the end with only half a dozen disorienting lurches.
Overall, "Call Me Dragon" is an album with a wonderful sheen that thrives because its guts and brains are in such fabulous order.
www.last.fm/music/These+Monsters
www.myspace.com/thesemonsters
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