Monolord ‘No Comfort’
Album Review By Adam McCann
Relapse Records/Doom Metal
These days, doom metal bands are pretty much everywhere, it is a genre which attracts mass attention beyond the gazing eye of the media. Fans of the genre are rabidly loyal, travelling far and wide to support their bands worldwide as niche doom festivals spring up like mushrooms in the shade after a rainstorm. One such doom band, Monolord may have had something of a stuttered start to their career with their first two albums failing to impress, however, the Swedes found their stride with ‘Rust’ in 2017 and have now released their latest album ‘No Comfort’.
As an album, ‘No Comfort’ picks up exactly where ‘Rust’ left off, big monolithic riffs and crushing drums juxtaposed with flowing bass and a wailing vocal which have all the primal power of Electric Wizard, Sleep and Conan. All this means that ‘No Comfort’ is leaps and bounds from where Monolord began their career, grinding tracks such as ‘The Bastard Son’ and ‘The Last Leaf’ hold court demonstrating what ‘No Comfort’ is all about. Sure, this album is sparse and raw, there are no gimmicks here, what you hear is what you get with its primordial pseudo live performance.
Yet, unfortunately, there is little that is memorable here and whilst guitarist and vocalist Thomas Jäger does his best to break the monotony with some excellent Tony Iommi style guitar solos, it just isn’t enough to bring ‘No Comfort’ into the forefront of memory. However, ‘No Comfort’ is far from a bad or even a poor album, it is quite enjoyable to listen to when it is playing, but once over, it is difficult to recall any real riffs, melodies or even songs. There are better doom albums released this year and there are significantly worse and for Monolord, ‘No Comfort’ sits quite happily in the middle.
Rating : 62/100
MHF Magazine/Adam McCann
