Style: Progressive metal, black metal, deathcore, post metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Ocean, Carnifex, Whitechapel, Lorna Shore, Kardashev
Country: UK
Release date: 29 November 2024
In the last month of the year, we tend to start thinking about the year in retrospect, the events, achievements and things that happened, whether those are big—new starts, profound losses, smashed goals—or small—reading enough books, growing a plant, irritating a neighbour. Completing an album is a pretty big deal, so, y’know, kudos to every band who released an album this year. Which means triple kudos to Monolith: the Devon-based band have released three concept albums in 2024 all set in the same universe and combining to create a mini sonic universe of narrative-driven concept albums exploring cosmic horror and environmental themes. The first two, Hornets Nest and Lord of the Insect Order, accorded with the band’s established punchy deathcore aesthetic, but on their third offering they veer off into territories proggy, posty, blackened, and leviathanic. The Black Cradle is named for the submarine in the album’s story, in which a lone person escapes from an anthropogenic apocalypse in search of the purest isolation at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Monolith subject The Black Cradle to increasing atmospheres of pressure. The first couple of tracks heavily feature Elise Cook providing eerie, gossamer cleans vocals over languid post-metal cultivating an atmosphere similar to that of Dreadnought—when the blackened screams come in, that similarity is reinforced. But as Monolith delve further trenchward, their heft and intensity increasingly suffocate the listener with lower tunings and increasing deathcore influence; by the time we end up at “Hadalpelagic: Life Oblivion / Terra Calamity (19686 – 36000ft1)” the riffs have reached Meshuggah levels of intensity and benthiccness. The textbook crushing riffs, frenetic drumming and unrelenting screams of Monolith’s native deathcore form the sonic backdrop within which The Black Cradle unfolds and their mastery of their instruments is unquestionable. Can they pivot successfully to proggier and blackened abodes?
Well, yes. Monolith demonstrate an impressive knowledge of the tropes and techniques of their newly adopted genres. Samples tell us of unidentified flying objects and astrophysical anomalies unfolding upon the surface, the heavily synthesised voices of lamenting whales on “Bathypelagic: Blood Throne Ascension (3821ft – 13124ft)” talk of their grief as one of their own falls to the bottom of the ocean to feed the seafloor—the cetaceans embarked upon their own “aimless dance” to parallel that of the human race—and we’re, of course, treated to some spoken word (from Cook); it wouldn’t be prog without it! Moments of orchestral accompaniment breakthrough, notably closing out the final three minutes of “Mesopelagic: Inquest of the Apparitions (656ft – 3281ft)”, adding an extra layer of portent to an already inordinately grandiloquent work.
Indeed, lyrically, The Black Cradle shows off an aptitude for storytelling and a Thesaurus-level vocabulary. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any band use terms like “truculent”, “decorticate,” or “jejune”, arguably for good reason; there’s a line between evocatively intellectual lyric writing and try-hard pretension, and Monolith straddle it with onanistically “Parklife”-esque abandon. For the most part, this is a dense and intelligent evocation of descent into a pitiless abyss, but the tendency towards excess is notable because it exists in the compositions, too. At sixty-five minutes and with their shortest track running to nearly ten minutes, The Black Cradle is undeniably self-indulgent. The aforementioned whale vocoder part is cool as hell, but it’s also the product of a band that left nothing on the cutting room floor—sometimes such a songwriting ethos breeds brilliance, sometimes it breeds turgidity.
The other main issue is the blackened screams which are always employed with the same rhythmic pattern which begins to grate when employed for an extended period—their home turf Whitechapel-esque deathcore growls are the stronger performance by far. The weakness of these higher screams also highlights the production; while Monolith’s mixing and mastering have improved over the course of their year’s output, the high end can nevertheless become tinny, washing out those screams and some of the higher atmospheres and orchestral work. The low end is well served, except in the most cataclysmically heavy and layered moments at which the sound can get a little muddy. But that these issues remain minor is testament to how powerful Monolith’s core vision is; the listener can’t help but succumb to the depths.
The Black Cradle is an overwhelming work, perhaps to a fault, but it certainly proves Monolith’s chops as a versatile and exploratory band able to turn their hand to genres outside their usual scope. Certainly, if you enjoy intricate and challenging concept albums with a strong sense of narrative and setting—think Echoes by Wills Dissolve, Hivemind by Ashbreather, and, of course, Pelagial by The Ocean—then The Black Cradle offers a whole ocean to explore and possibly be crushed by.
Recommended tracks: Bathypelagic: Blood Throne Ascension (3821ft – 13124ft), Mesopelagic: Inquest of the Apparitions (656ft – 3281ft)
You may also like: Wills Dissolve, Ashbreather
Final verdict: 7/10
- I had to copy the song titles as they were written on Monolith’s Bandcamp, but, yes, the lack of a comma to denote a thousand upset me too. ↩︎
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Independent
Monolith is:
– Luke (vocals)
– Rob (guitars)
– Lewis (bass/whispers)
– Dan (drums)
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