Monument
The First Monument

I stare blankly at my computer keyboard, immersed in a cataclysm of papers and notebooks suspended between the playful of a halfling thief slowly coming to life and the serious notes of a thesis that must one day see the light. I scratch my head, stay thinking for a few seconds. The shrill and vaguely irritating notes of “The Metamorphis Tango” slam into my head; the bass is a sort of migraine, the keyboards are gloomy wails from beyond the grave. A few minutes pass. There's a bit of wind outside, the day is cold; the window faces north and my room remains in shadow. The pounding skeletal march of “Boneyard Bunme” invades this lair for a moment, lashed by a guitar as sharp and cold as the lake wind blowing not far away.

This march towards “The First Monument,” a sort of altar - a rosette of malignant fire - which they long for, is a skewed representation at the limits of a restless hard, not coincidentally emerging from the depths of an underground scene. The year of grace is nineteen seventy-one. The four demons that will last for the time of a vinyl are the Monument, four invented names with the scent of the macabre at the service of a gloomy atmosphere. They are none other than the little-known Zior, in the grip of a mad drunken night - at least so tell the fiery taverns that entertain the lost souls on their journey along the Styx.

The tracks, generally associated with hard prog and inevitably underground, nonetheless do not stray from a rigid song form. Original and evocative in their occult resonation, they do not fully shake the senses, certain sounds are too cold. Perhaps they then succeed in their intent. This painful song resonates, stinging, uttered by a destructive voice and accompanied by Wes Truvor's spirited guitar, Whether for the weighty “Dog Man” (reminiscent of Black Sabbath and frankly beautiful) or for the sticky “State Flesh,” where the rhythm urges and supports an organ as dark as an aberrant howl in a cave. The voice is initially a rat's squeak, then a Cerberus' roar.

Stephen Lowe screams, in the throes of alcohol fumes, his fingers torture the organ which moans with long, suffering sounds. If “Don’t Run Me Down” is a sort of infernal Rock ‘n’ roll, “Give Me Life” becomes a plea, desperate in its lightness (excellent arrangement: they know how to play, there is no doubt about that). Yet, even in the depths of darkness, a breath of love comes: at “First Taste Of Love” the guitar remembers its nature and gifts some cheerful lines of color to the lost souls. The organ, however, will not have it, and while it moans under the harpy fingers that squeeze it, its tyrant screams his suffering. Marve Fletcheley's heavy bass supports crooked melodies, the guitar is now a thin breeze: “And She Goes” results in an immature track, an agitated jolt. Now it really is darkness.

Finally, a piano comes to take the stage, haunting and spectral; the left hand crosses scales and then consumes the gloomy low keys, making the viscera vibrate, while the right hand moves frantically in the high swirls of this “Overture for limp piano in C.” Then the hands stop. The dark laments interrupt the ivory quiver, Jake Brewster's drums urge them on with an austere obsession that is almost reminiscent of a cockroach (they say there were famous ones, on the surface). “I’m Coming Back,” says the dark despot, thinking of the depths of his origin, his fiery eyes imperceptibly moist. The skeletons’ procession departs: its evil aura is now only a greenish glow immersed in darkness, down there in the deep.

Outside, the sun has come out; I go out. The dry grass in many areas of the lawn presents a thousand shades of ochre, elsewhere it retains an uncertain and reassuring green. I walk barefoot, in the light.