•
Rating: A senselessly chaotic noise. A cold, clear, bitter sound. An absolute battle between decadent melodies and noises produced by a "guitar?", not taking into account the apocalyptic, melodramatic lyrics; all strictly designed to embody a new synonym of pain, discomfort, hate: "Monolith".
The Amebix are born in Devon, an underrated English band known to a very small audience, mainly for having invented a way of being, more than a musical genre: Crust Punk. After ten years spent prophesying this genre, after meeting Jello Biafra, and after signing for Heavy Metal, the Amebix release their last official album, their swan song, and as the legend goes, the last song is always the most beautiful. "Monolith" is a straightforward and disarming message of existential pessimism, a complicated journey into the minds of these frustrated boys.
The album includes everything from a raw and no-frills post-punk to Thrash Metal alternations, "the influences of Metallica and Slayer are evident”. Each of these madmen demonstrates technical and compositional mastery and intelligence: the "baron" invokes icy bass lines, "the outbursts in Time Bomb and in The Power Remains are proof", and equally icy is Spider’s performance, "drums", leading up to Stig's surprising ability to create desolate but never pathetic melodies that don't require words: "Last Will and Testament, Fallen From Grace, Coming Home", but capable of transforming and exploding into a thousand moods from one moment to the next, turning his guitar into a relentless machine gun, irregular, bare, skeletal: "the wonderful contrast between ‘Monolith’ and 'Nobody's Driving', and the epic solo at the end of "Coming Home". All covered by the raspy voice of Rob Miller: an unthinkable mixture between the first Quorthon, Kilmister, and a very clumsy Cobain; a truly indecent thing, and at the same time, fascinatingly sick, a rusty music box.
Almost a call, "even if very remote", even more suffering and suffered, to Joy Division of "Closer" and "An Ideal For Living".
"Monolith" is an album that can neither be seen nor touched: a white flag.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
06 I.C.B.M. (06:05)
Meatwagon come, borne on the rays of the morning sun
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
A silver express through the valley of death
A cruise over land, to turn the fertile soil to sand
Ten million bodies, maybe more
From every wound a stream of blood doth pour
We must find a way to stop the flood
Dam the river of blood!
08 Fallen From Grace (04:14)
The wind of change transformed the plains into the desert
And on the lower levels demons scream delight
Places of worship have ceased to serve the purpose
The age of reason took a ride into the night
Where there were idols there is idleness
Unholy churches light their fires upon the moor
They sealed the pact with blood and honour
The machine spits blood and lurches into war
[Chorus:]
We have fallen, it leaves such an embittered taste
Erectus is now crawling, we have fallen from grace
There is a black tree in the wilderness
Older than time itself and riddled with disease
It feeds on clotted blood and rotting flesh
The hunger we all seem too willing to appease
When all before you lose their heads into the block
When e'en the proudest bend their knees before the flock
They seek salvation in the depths of madmen's eyes
Knee deep in blood and gore they look toward the skies
They sought the means by which to transform the gods
Burnt the books, created death camps on the way
A new religion from the ashes of the old
A social order one of masters and slaves
They dreamt of everyman, we merely have regressed
Into the animal that can't perceive the will
Look at the embryo, so twisted and grotesque
This is your superman, the legacy to kill
[Chorus:]
We have fallen, the losers in the human race
Erectus is now crawling, we have fallen from grace
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By Josif
An anti-communist and anarcho-utopian band, born in the late '70s in the ultra-capitalist land of Albion, proponents of a metallic Punk Rock that even manages to incorporate Darkwave influences.
If, for one reason or another, you’ve let it slip by, oh dear, you’re quite the unlucky one.
