MONOCEROS

— First review of this album —

After post-rock got its own identifying tag in the 1990s as a bonafide genre, bands have cropped up all over the world including places most of us English speaking nations never thought of like Mexico for example. While most of the post-rock bands that have come from this vibrant nation have emerged from the capital Mexico City (such as Life, Diles Que No Me Maten, Sadness, Austin TV, A Shelter In The Desert), a few have escaped the once limiting confines of small towns and cities and joined the post-party.

One such act is MONOCEROS from the city of Tepic in the state of Nayarit which features band members César Rodriguez, Os Negrete, George Briseño and Edgar Santiago however info is fairly scarce about this band and it's not really even known which members play which instruments however this is a fairly straight forward style of post-rock that features guitar, bass, drums and atmospheric keyboards and almost completely instrumental but i think i hear a few wordless vocalizations creep in occasionally. The band's name refers to a faint constellation on the celestial equator and the band's so far only album IN GIRUM IMUS NOCTE ET CONSUMIMUR IGNI is Latin for "We Go Around At Night And Consumed By Fire."

This album features six tracks that play at over 52 minutes and offers a rather traditional post-rock style in the vein of Explosions In The Sky intensity, Sigur Ros moments of ethereal otherworldliness and a bit of more amplified Russian Circles. The atmosphere is thick throughout the album that adds as much to the overall sound as do the cyclical guitar riffing loops and the bleating bass runs. The band implements all the expected post-rock tricks such as slowly ascending tension that culminates in a climactic uproar however the album is fairly mellow for the most part existing more on chill mode than tumultuous rocking out however the track "Reynolds" features more rock aspects than most as does the lengthy closer (the two best tracks IMHO).

The album pretty much comes off as a one-trick pony for the most part with the same tone clusters and guitar moves on every track with a few dynamics shifting but really not enough to sustain an album's worth of meandering through repetitive motifs. The closing "Veda Skyes Perpetual Light Effluvium" offers a bit of variation beyond the status quo but a little too little too late and even then not significantly different than the rest of the album except for a few time signature changes and varied shuffling of the elements. It also features some interesting drum work but not to the point that the track really excels at much else. The track is also the lengthiest at 12 1/2 minutes playing time but doesn't really justify it's longevity. At least it closes the album with a faster rock bang that offers the proper climactic delivery.

While not an unpleasant dreamy drifting experience, MONOCEROS is certainly not up to the task of taking the post-rock 101 aspects of the genre and propelling them into a unique style of their own which is a major problem with a lot of bands that fall within this genre who tend to simply copy and paste their influences rather than innovate and create. Like many of these types of bands, this one's sole album is competent in its delivery system however the creative flow is clearly lacking and leaves this a decent background sorta musical experience but not one that will beckon you to return to again and again like the most brilliant artists that the post-rock genre has produced.