A little more than six months after the release of Epsilon Aurigae, here is the arrival of Zeta Reticuli to complete this discographic work of Monolithe, which not coincidentally is also published in a single package containing both works, always by Debemur Morti. This album confirms and reinforces the tendencies emerged from the new course of the French band that, while continuing to pursue its cosmic concept, has definitely made more airy their compositions freeing themselves completely from an orthodox funeral to arrive at a form of doom much more atmospheric, in which exponentially increase the beautiful guitar solos of Sylvain Begot and reaching, finally, to close the work with the entire The Barren Depths interpreted by the guest Guyom Pavesi (singer of Devianz, band in which he plays the other guitarist Benoît Blin) with his particular and stentorian clean voice. In short, the galaxy Monolithe continues to float in the endless spaces of the universe and does so expeditiously since 2012, when, after five years of silence, began a period of great prolificacy coinciding with the publication of four full lengths. What was immediately evident since III was the greater dynamism of a sound that, in the course of subsequent works, has become increasingly open to melodic solutions sublimated, finally, in a refrain like the one present in The Barren Depths, where it trespasses into parallel musical worlds inhabited by Mastodon and co. Cosmic atmospheric doom is an ad hoc definition for Monolithe, which, with a work of this magnitude, could expand not a little the base of their loyal fans, while remaining for attitude and evocative capabilities a doom band to all intents and purposes; impossible to resist these soundtracks that bring the mind to an imaginary Kubrickian, which, on closer inspection, conveys a sense of dismay not less than the mournful scenarios that are normally the main theme of the genre. Apart from the splendid anomaly constituted by the last track (of exactly 15 minutes, as is also the case for the other tracks on this disc and its predecessor), Ecumenopolis is a magnificent episode, in which Richard Loudin declaims gloomy futuristic scenarios on compositional schemes that are now a trademark: the crescendo in the central part, the pulse of the bass in the conclusion, leave room for an instrumental (TMA-1, homologue of TMA-0 of Epsilon Aurigae) in which Jari Lindholm of the excellent Enshine gives his guitar piece. Just the recognizability of the sound is, as always, one of the most obvious symptoms of the achievement of a considerable status: that of Monolithe is still a cult, because such is the fate of those who play this genre even at the highest levels, but if today I had to bet a euro on a funeral band capable of breaking down the barriers of gender to reach a (relatively) wider popularity, I would bet it on these Parisians with their head well beyond the clouds.

2016 – Debemur Morti Productions