MONOLORD ‘Neverending’

MONOLORD
Neverending
Relapse Records

The Swedish doom trio MONOLORD has undergone something of a sonic transformation on its sixth full length, ‘Neverending.’ Indeed, it is safe to say it is the least “doomy” album of the band’s 13-year career.

While there are certainly plenty of epic, quaking, achingly slow moments, ‘Neverending’ is considerably punchier and more immediate – and, indeed, accessible – than much of MONOLORD’s back catalog. Yet there is no shortage of the oomph that has been the band’s forte.

To accomplish this, the largely self-sufficient band took a considerable leap of faith. MONOLORD recorded its five prior albums in Sweden and handled nearly all the recording/production/mixing work on its own, generally in a combined effort by guitarist/frontman Thomas Jager and drummer Esden Williams. For ‘Neverending,’ the band approached American producer/engineer Sylvia Massy – whose diverse, high-profile work includes the first two TOOL releases ‘Opiate’ and ‘Undertow’ and clients ranging from SYSTEM OF A DOWN, SLAYER and EXODUS to Johnny Cash, Prince and, umm GREEN JELLY – to gauge her interest in working with it.

Interested Massy was. So MONOLORD traveled to her studio in Ashland, Oregon, to hone and record ‘Neverending’ from material the band had sent her ahead of time to sift through. The partnership, and method, seems to have worked like a charm, making the leap worth taking.

With Massy’s help, MONOLORD chiseled some of its brontosaurian girth into more digestible chunks and sprinkled on additional melody to take advantage of Jager’s airy, disarming croon and lighten the mood ever so slightly. Where previous albums typically offered a half-dozen 8 to 9-minute ruminations, ‘Neverending’ delivers its eight tracks in a comparatively lean 43-ish minutes.

Five tracks clock in at around 4minutes and are interspersed by the more familiar gloomy bombast of “Inside A Collider,” “Oozing Wound” and album closer “It’s Neverending.” “Iodine” and “You Bastard” open the album with a compact one-two punch – with an emphasis on punch thanks to Jager’s heaving hooks and Mika Häkki’s shuddering bass. “Iodine’s” loping drums and harmonized leads are surprisingly lively, while the catchiness of the more deliberate “You Bastard” belies its grinding Swe-deathy tone.

“Crystal Bridge” contrasts hard-hitting COC/DOWN-like Southern rock rumble and chug with ethereal, shoe-gazey dreaminess and a rather abrupt finish. “The Masque” is more buoyant, boasting the album’s catchiest, crunchiest hook lines that recall CATHEDRAL at the height of its powers. As the last of the “short” songs, “Invisible” is deceptively frisky despite its mostly plodding verses and delivers a cascade of buzz-sawing riffs and soaring leads.

The longer tunes are truly mammoth but are well sequenced betwixt and between so as not to sound ponderous or belabor the point. At 8:08, “Inside A Collider” is classic creepy-crawl doom offset by soaring lead flourishes that again echo CATHEDRAL and add almost classical grandiosity. The 7-minute “Oozing Wound” stays true to its name with its near-constant percolating pace and fuzzy sludge riffs. Raspy guest vocals from ex-ENTOMBED bassist Jörgen Sandström make the 8:36 “It's Neverending” a rather ominous closing number, at least until the last two minutes when Jager takes over with his wispy vocals and sparse acoustic guitar/synth accompaniment. It’s a rather extreme example of the contrasts here, but the quiet finish almost comes as a relief.

It might be tempting to think of ‘Neverending’ as MONOLORD’s ‘Black Album,’ but it is a less calculating effort than that in many ways. Plenty of the “old” MONOLORD remains and there is a omnipresent grittiness to the tone here to ensure any additional catchiness maintains a ragged edge. The album is meant not to wipe the slate clean, as it were, which one could argue is what METALLICA did with the ‘Black Album,’ instead it moves the band forward by first taking it a bit sideways.

4.0 Out Of 5.0