Moneen – “The World I Want To Leave Behind”

Moneen are back, with new members here and there and also a more straightforward sound. The five piece used to have a few tempo switching moments rammed into their songs and generally an interesting, unorthodox way of making songs; however, the unique element of Moneen has now departed and sadly radio rock has taken over.

Sure, it sounds good, there are no poor songs or ‘skippable’ songs, but there’s a lack of uniqueness anywhere on this album. I don’t like condemning albums to this, but it’s largely background music. It’s on and it sounds nice, but you soon forget that it’s even there.

There are a few highlights such as “Hold That Sound” which is probably single material. However, Moneen fans are likely to be disappointed with this latest ‘maturing’ effort and will soon lose interest in a band that has a fair amount of hardcore listeners.

We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again, the curse of ‘going mainstream’ is one that seems to infect many promising bands that are stuck between nobodies and ‘almost there’. Hopefully I’m wrong, as this band clearly do have talent within them, but this album just has the feeling that this is the start of the slow death of Moneen.  [ END ]

Track Listing:

01. The World I Want To Leave Behind
02. Hold That Sound
03. The Great Escape
04. Believe
05. Redefine
06. The Way
07. The Long Count
08. The Monument
09. Waterfalls
10. Red Eyes
11. Lighters
12. The Glasshouse

Run Time: 45:02
Release Date: 09.15.2009