You are there review mono

No words truly do it anything like justice anyway. The facts, first: this, You Are There , is album number four from the Japanese quartet; it was recorded by Steve Albini; it sees Mono edge closer still to the classical spectrum, incorporating strings to great effect. Not once does a single quarter of the band step forward to offer forth some nugget, some trinket, something of aesthetic immediacy but ultimate irrelevance.

Not one, and why is clear; aficionados already know this. These are but the foundations, the basic building blocks upon which dreams are built and toppled, upon which a man can rest easy only so long, knowledgeable that eventually the structure will shatter, fragments raining for a thousand years henceforth. Mono is the blueprint. You are the builder, the hard-topped henchman of your own next hour.

Where you go once this album rumbles into life on your stereo, only you decide. How it moves you — vigorous, slightly, absolutely — is entirely dependent on your at-this-moment mood.

You can read it, hear it, only two ways: either it grasps you, leaving you fumbling blindly through its entirety, entirely enraptured, or it renders you cold. Latter parties, these following paragraphs serve you no worthwhile purpose. How, exactly, does an alleged critic accurately convey their thoughts, their feelings, now? Should they — I — strip You Are There back to its basic component parts: guitar, twice, bass and drums.

Both the minute opener "The Flames Beyond the Cold Mountain" and the minute "Yearning" begin as uniformly desolate, funereal elegies before hitting their seismic crash-endos around the seven-minute mark and lingering until every last ember has flamed out.

Mono's fuzz-pedal fireworks are impressive in their sheer volume and vigor, but there's rarely the sense the music is ever going to fall apart, steer off the rails, or even change pace; these emotional roller coasters stay within the legal speed limit and come with extra-secure seatbelts. Only closer "Moonlight" also a minute commitment betrays any signs of loosening, with a limbering space-rock sway that climbs up the back half of Pink Floyd's "Echoes".

Mono are generous enough to offset You Are There 's four colossal tracks with a pair of serene, three-minute pieces the glockenspieled lullaby "A Heart Has Asked for the Pleasure" and the string-sweetened piano pastorale "The Remains of the Day" , and even if these brief respites work better as bathroom breaks than stand-along songs, they're ultimately necessary: after an hour of getting your heartstrings tugged with such intense proficiency, You Are There starts to feel no less egregiously manipulative than hearing Celine belt out "My Heart Will Go On" for the thousandth time in a Vegas ballroom.

Are You There? The Remains of the Day 6. Moonlight Total Time They're a japanese instrumental post-rock band, and theyre one of the best ones around. Often compared to labelmates Explosions in the Sky, I find them a great deal darker and more haunting. They have an eerie sense of harmony, dynamics and suspense. I have had the unique pleasure of seeing this band live, which can only be described as "out there". On to the album: The first track, "The Flames Beyond the Cold Mountain", starts with near silence as very faint and haunting chords slowly fade in.

Gradually more layers are added, the drums start to wail, and eventually the song is a dense cacauphony of crashing drums and screaming, fast-picked and heavily delayed guitar layers. This song is a great example of what Mono does best.

They can take a simple theme and expand on it, continually adding layers upon layers until the intensity builds to a breaking point. Just when you think you will go deaf from the noise, they back off in favor of softer guitar harmonies. This is a very effective structure for their music. The interludes are usually softer, more ambient, and feature different instruments such as keyboards or xylophones. The second epic, "Yearning" is overall a bit lighter than the first, but still every bit as emotional.

The music builds and backs off frequently, eventually bursting into a very loud chaos directly out of near silence. The third epic, "Moonlight", is more orchestral in nature than the rest of their music which is normally based only on guitar, bass and drums. This is an album to listen to with the lights out. You have to feel this album. As I learned during their live show, Mono are an experience, not a band. This is a great album from a great band, their best work to date, and an excellent addition to anyone's collection, but not quite a masterpiece I use to hum "Human Highway from their debut" frequently y'know Long ones usually start with tremolo guitars and then build up to hardly bearable crescendoes which makes you feel as if you're somewhere in the mountains where you lack air and you have to breath deeper but you're still can't get enough Shorties are usually piano-bells-violins pieces, extremely melodic and cinematic.

Highly recommended. The song calms back down to the same gentle guitar melodies from earlier before we are blasted again 12 minutes in. They burn for over 4 minutes! Then it calms back down. Again there is so much emotion here after 6 minutes. It settles back down as the strings are joined by the guitars.