Monkey3, Beyond the Black Sky: Space is Deep, the Desert is Endless
Posted in Reviews on June 27th, 2011 by H.P. Taskmaster
Marking a decade of existence in 2011 after one of their most successful years yet – 2010 found them appearing at both Roadburn and Hellfest – Swiss psychedelonauts Monkey3 follow-up 2009’s covers EP, Undercover, with their third full-length, Beyond the Black Sky. Released via Stickman Records with art by Malleus, the eight-track LP runs just over 42 minutes, and on it, the four-piece Lausanne band delves into a range of atmospheres, keeping their instrumental songs memorable and grounded with a foundation of heavy riffs. The vibe is vaguely stoner, but there’s more going on with Monkey3 (either written thusly or Monkey 3 with a space between the name and number; I’ve seen it both ways) than simple riff-driven instrumentality, and where an act like Karma to Burn has clearly had some influence, Beyond the Black Sky pulls from synth-inclusive space rock and heavy jamming, resulting in a feel generally more atmospheric, as they show in the low underlying rumble of the short “Tuco the Ugly.” These are songs, and they’re accessible on that level, but each piece also has a character of its own and a progression playing out.
For that alone, that Monkey3 manage to achieve that balance, Beyond the Black Sky is a win. They open the album with “Camhell,” which finds guitar and synth affecting a repetitive hypnosis while drummer Walter (first names only, all around) keeps the build moving. And it is a build. The song peaks once, drops down, and peaks again in its six-plus minutes, ending at a noodling guitar apex that cuts off as though the low-end effects that open “One Zero Zero One” are a wall the band has just pushed you into. “One Zero Zero One” – which doesn’t actually translate from binary to anything in text – is more patient all around, guitarist Boris and keyboardist dB working well together as the former offers a memorable rhythm line in the song’s final moments. That interplay between the guitar and keyboards runs throughout Beyond the Black Sky, lending the record as a whole a progressive air, but Monkey3, despite being a heavy psychedelic band given to lengthy jams like that in Side A-highlight “Black Maiden” (8:52), are never fully lost in self-indulgence. The structure of “Black Maiden” isn’t so different from “Camhell” or that which shows up later on closer “Through the Desert” (another high point of the record), but through diversity in their riffing style and complexity of the parts they’re playing, Monkey3 avoid sounding samey or repetitive where they’re not meaning to be. “Black Maiden” brings bassist Picasso and dB for hits and ringouts during a lengthy midsection of mostly guitar and synth, and it works tremendously well setting up the build of the song’s latter half.
“Tuco the Ugly” is more of an interlude at 2:13; a well-placed comedown from “Black Maiden” that provides afterthought to the breadth of that track while also closing out the first half of the record, but more interesting about it is how it plays next to “K.I,” which follows. Where “Tuco the Ugly” relies on acoustic guitar and a foreboding Western ambience perhaps inspired by their take on the theme from Once Upon a Time in the West from Undercover, “K.I” is practically industrial, with Boris’ start-stop riffing, the mechanical-sounding rhythms behind and wash of synth. Since both cuts are the only ones on Beyond the Black Sky under three minutes, and since they’re paired right next to each other, one can’t help but compare them, and though I’m more partial personally to the relaxed, open-country style of “Tuco the Ugly,” there’s no denying that “K.I” grooves and leads well into the organ-ic “Motorcycle Broer,” which finds Picasso at his most present yet, mix-wise, and Boris moving the guitars into atmospheric volume swells when not playing up straightforward rock riffing or – as later in the track – busting out the best solo on Beyond the Black Sky.
The first album by Tom G. Warrior‘s post-Celtic Frost outfit Triptykon was a revelation. It was as though Warrior himself was reaching his hand through the speakers to say, “It’s okay that Celtic Frost is broken up, everything’s going to be fine…. and by that I mean we’re all going to die and life is utterly meaningless.” Eparistera Daimones stands stall as one of 2010′s most grim and beautiful releases, Warrior and his band reveling in their misery with all the avant blackened doom that has become synonymous with his name over the last 30 years.
I saw them again in New York, Triptykon was a highlight of the year, no question. The only reason it’s not higher up my list is because there were other albums I listened to more. If this were a quality-only kind of tabulation (which, by being a tabulation, it couldn’t really be; discuss amongst yourselves), Eparistera Daimones would certainly be a top 10 record, but staying power counts.
There has been much said over the years about Tom G. Warrior. One thing about the man in 2010: he is completely unwilling to compromise. He’s been down that road before, with Celtic Frost, and it made for one of metal’s most memorable missteps. But no more. When he left Celtic Frost in 2008 to form Triptykon, it became his singular vision that would guide the band, and no outside interest could sway it. Triptykon‘s Eparistera Daimones was a testament to this idea, a broad swipe of avant doom and black metals that showed not only was the venerable frontman as duly strong in his songwriting, playing and vocalizing, but his sheer creative will was more potent than ever.
Phased‘s cumbersomely-titled fourth album, A Sort of Spasmic Phlegm Induced by Leaden Fumes of Pleasure, isn’t the highest profile release of 2010, but the Swiss trio has stumbled onto a individualized mixture of space, stone and doom that they weave their way through expertly. It could be the fact that this lineup of Phased has been together for nearly a decade (the band itself formed in 1997), or it could be the kind of chemistry that’s either there to begin with or not and no amount of time can bring about. Whatever they’re doing, it works.
From the day it was announced that acclaimed guitarist/vocalist Tom Gabriel Warrior was leaving Swiss black metal innovators Celtic Frost following their fucking awesome reunion album Monotheist, it was clear that whatever he did next was going to be a tricky proposition. After all, this isn’t the first time Celtic Frost broke up, and considering it took them about half a decade to get Monotheist together, was it really such a surprise to see the band come apart? The upside was that when Triptykon, Warrior’s new band, was revealed, he more or less said his plan was to make it sound like Celtic Frost, and to that end, he was taking the parts he was going to use for songs on the next Celtic Frost record and turn it into Triptykon’s first album, Eparistera Daimones.
Let there be no misunderstanding: Phased know their rock. The multinational (Switzerland, Finland and Sweden) rock trio recently issued their fourth album via Elektrohasch Schallplatten, and though you might expect a band who calls a record something as cumbersome as A Sort of Spasmic Plhegm Induced by Leaden Fumes of Pleasure to beat around the bush for a while, for the most part Phased get right down to business with a borderline trippy psych rock that galvanizes strains of Fu Manchu, Queens of the Stone Age with the rougher hewn edges of Sleep and The Melvins.
After recording 2004′s Lust in Translation and 2006′s The Beast is on Your Track (both on Supermodern Records) in Seattle with Jack Endino (who’s done albums for Nebula, Mudhoney, The Atomic Bitchwax, etc.), Swiss power trio Zamarro opted to stay closer to their Basel home near their country’s borders with Germany and France and work with V.O. Pulver (Gurd) in his Little Creek Studios for their first album in three years. The resulting Dirty Power (LC Records) may share a name with a San Francisco stoner band who coincidentally also worked with Endino — unless it’s an unlikely tribute; would be something if Dirty Power‘s next album was called Zamarro — but the record itself offers straightforward, by the books stoner rock.
