Behold! the Monolith, Architects of the Void: Poison for Protection (Plus Album Stream!)
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on September 17th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
[Please note: Behold! the Monolith release Architects of the Void on Sept. 29, with vinyl to follow in December. Thanks to the band and PR for permission to host the album stream.]
Exclamatory genre-blenders Behold! the Monolith made their full-length self-titled debut in 2009. Then a trio, the Los Angeles-based outfit would follow that album with Defender, Redeemist in 2012, and now, three years later, they offer their third long-player in Architects of the Void. That would seem to be right on schedule, but the truth is much harsher, guitarist/vocalist Matt Price and drummer Chase Manhattan having lost bassist/vocalist Kevin McDade in a car accident shortly after the second album was released. With Architects of the Void, Behold! the Monolith — now a four-piece with bassist Jason “Cas” Casanova (also Sasquatch, ex-Tummler) and standalone vocalist Jordan Nalley — prove that not only do they have it in them to persevere after the tragic death of one-third of their original lineup, but that they’re able to do so in vital and righteously heavy fashion.
Taking cues from a variety of metallic styles from black, death, doom, thrash, post-Mastodonic crunch, and so on, Behold! the Monolith partnered with producer Billy Anderson (Sleep, Acid King, Neurosis, so many more) and constructed a seven-track/50-minute excursion into oppressive atmospherics and somehow-regal tectonics. The core of Architects of the Void is wildly aggressive, but the band’s application of that aggression is manifest in the Candlemass-style mournfulness of “Lord of Bones” and the manner in which death-doom ambience of opener “Umbral Vale” feeds into the tense intro of “Philosopher’s Blade” that precedes a thrashing gallop and some of Nalley‘s harshest, most biting vocals on the record.
Not to be understated is the fluidity of these changes and how easy Behold! the Monolith make it sound to mesh various stylistic elements. “Philosopher’s Blade” is a standout for its uptick in pace, but more so its sense of control, the class with which the four-piece execute their marauding progression and give way into the eight-minute “The Mithriditist,” wherein far-back-but-cleaner shouts, screams, growls, airy acoustic guitars, back-breaking heft, heavy rock swing and black metal all seem to find common ground to suit the band’s purposes. Among the most singularly impressive of Architects of the Void‘s tracks, it’s worth remembering that “The Mithriditist” is still just a piece of the overarching whole-album flow. A vicious part, though, and its wash of feedback and noise at the end fades to let “Lord of Bones” call to mind “The Samarithan” with its central riff but retain entirely more ill-meaning purposes, insistent and crushing largesse taking hold early in back and forth tempo shifts until, in the second half of the song, they dip full-on into blackened thrash extremity only to end cold and precise and sudden, churning to a head and then cutting out relatively quick.
That brings about “Black Days of…,” which is the shortest of the tracks at 2:41 and more of an interlude, though one that retains the heavier material’s lung-deflating claustrophobia amid its samples, weaving-in-and-out feedback and drone, and in turn recedes into the bludgeoning of “Between Oder and the Vistula.” Alternately stampeding in its gallop, grooved in its doom and, at its most intense, all-out grinding, it fits with the wide breadth of “The Mithriditist” and “Lord of Bones” earlier, and it hits a grandiose crescendo in its midsection that I can’t help but associate with a Strapping Young Lad influence, especially vocally, before letting Price carry the bridge with a standout solo. Big, angry, fast, angrier. The real achievement is how Behold! the Monolith manage to offer something so wildly different-sounding in structure across these cuts while keeping the mood so consistent. Imaging being blinded with rage seven different ways.
Sounds exhausting, and by the time they get around to the 14-minute closing title-track, Architects of the Void will no doubt have lapped plenty of listeners. Still, it’s worth sticking it out for the finale not because it reaffirms the frenetic course of what comes before it, or because it pushes further from the manic pieces of “Between Oder and the Vistula,” but because its build is so clear in its linearity and because in their final movement, Behold! the Monolith seem less concerned with the multifaceted nature of their attack than with what a single progression put to its best use can accomplish. That’s not to say “Architects of the Void” doesn’t have its changes, or that the other songs don’t have a clear idea of where they want to be or what the varying pieces are working to accomplish, just that the balance shifts in a way that reinforces precisely that notion that the band are doing more across the album’s span than simply putting parts next to each other and calling it heavy.
The closer ends on a long fade topped by an obscure, manipulated sample that winds up being the last element to go, its human roots barely recognizable. After so consuming a trip, it feels as though Behold! the Monolith are leaving the listener in the void they’ve blueprinted, but when the smoke clears, the prevailing impression is less about what influences the band has mashed together than about what they’ve managed to build out of that mash. While keeping to a three-year timetable, Behold! the Monolith have overcome a tragedy that would be the undoing of many acts and moved forward on Architects of the Void with a sound that doesn’t at all forget where it came from, but keeps its intentions geared toward future growth.
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