La Fin Du Monde – “Monolith”

Epic instrumental rock is ground that has been, to be fair, well trodden by groups such as Explosions In The Sky, Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Unwed Sailor. This doesn’t mean, though, that efforts to create a new strain aren’t welcome. In fact, when they are done with such strength, tension and moments of blissful beauty as La Fin Du Monde does, you might start clamoring for even more groups to try their hand at this sound.

This Chico, California outfit’s first album packs a great deal of movement and energy into a compact 35 minutes of recording time. Over this half-hour, there are a variety of shifts in mood and movement. “We Will Fall,” the 10-minute opus that closes out the album, for example, slinks in atop a rolling drum beat, shifting between fuzzy riffs and the bottom heavy melodics of the group’s two bass players and more delicate moments of guitar interplay.

By the end, though, the leash is off and the band is snarling and snapping at your heels. It’s a template that serves the band well throughout this, their second disc, saving the more noodly moments from dragging these songs too far off course.  [ END ]

Track Listing:

01. These Babies Are Edible
02. Dismal Tide
03. They Will Never See Us
04. Beast IV
05. We Will Fall

Run Time: 35:17
Release Date: 07.10.2009