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Mono - Hymn to the Immortal Wind CD (album) cover

HYMN TO THE IMMORTAL WIND

Mono

 

Post Rock/Math rock

3.82 | 151 ratings

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EatThatPhonebook
Prog Reviewer
4 stars 7/10

"Hymn To The Immortal wind" is a huge album that will crush your soul with it's beauty.

Mono is a Post-Rock band from Japan that has received a lot of attention with the previous efforts such as "You Are There", and is now much more popular with "Hymn To The Immortal Wind", an album that created quite the buzz, and for a really good reason. Whoever is familiar with Mono knows that they are amazingly melancholic. Their music crushes your soul because of its stunningly pure beauty. Sadness and bleakness are the main themes for Mono and for "Hymn To The Immortal Wind";as a matter of fact, it's almost tear-jerking. But it's also very cinematic, and the songs are all incredibly well-arranged. This is possibly one of the most mature releases of Post-Rock in general, everything here is so serious and not a bit innocent.

Mono's Post-Rock is for me a sort of stereotype of the genre; tons of orchestral arrangements, tremolo guitars, rare percussion, and instrumental. Definitely far from bands like the guitar-driven Mogwai or the more sample-based GY!BE. But it's a much more straight-forward and easier to listen to style, not at all as experimental as the bands I mentioned above: Mono is more into the melody. The orchestra is truly beautiful here, and it's definitely the main reason why this album is very cinematic sounding; special mention to the cellos, that give a deep, chilling sound and the violins as well.

"Hymn To The Immortal Wind" is a huge album: it's constantly building, and it does so until the music is so potent it might make you cry. This makes Mono's album a towering, yet extremely fragile work, there are moments where you'll be touched, and some, I admit, when you might get a little bored, especially in the calmer parts in the middle of a few songs, where there's barely any music. Thus some of the quieter moments (of course there are plenty of beautiful ones as well) here are turning me off a little bit, but they are easily compensated.

These seven songs, wrapped in more than an hour of music, make a very solid album, one of the most solid of the year as a matter of fact. The very well constructed "Ashes In The Snow", with its amazing build-up, is the opener of the album, and immediately suggests what you're getting into, along with it's following "Burial At Sea", a much more meditative track. "Follow The Map" is the most beautiful song here, and surprisingly the shortest as well, "The Battle Of Heaven" the most well arranged and played, "Everlasting Light" a great closer for the album, that contains a beautiful piano hook echoing throughout the entire track, the last impression that this album will give you.

A great musical journey that is an absolute must for Post-Rock fans, but not only. I can assure you you're in for a treat with this one, and maybe a little more than that: it is one of the best Post-Rock albums of the last few years.

EatThatPhonebook | 4/5 |

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