Mono 2015 Australian tour
It starts sweetly. A glockenspiel loop sounds out beneath finger-picked guitar melodies. Then without warning, a torrent sweeps in - guitars that are at once immense and brittle. Within less than a minute it gives way to a wall of distortion, recedes only to swoop in once more, the intensity of the guitars bobbing like waves in a storm.
So goes Ashes in the Snow, the opening track from Mono's fifth studio record, Hymn to the Immortal Wind and one of the highlights of their dense discography. It embodies everything Mono have come to represent in their fifteen year career – music that simultaneously conjures hope and apocalyptic dread, that evokes crushing loneliness and uplifting exaltation in the same note.
On their latest album, 2014’s The Last Dawn and Rays of Darkness, Mono’s sound is fully realized. Their ambitious marriage of cinematic largesse, doomish dread, sprawling post-rock and orchestral majesty is distilled into 84 minutes of emotionally demanding and immensely rewarding musical transcendence, cementing themselves alongside the likes of Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky at the forefront of the post-rock canon.
Despite their penchant for beautiful and brittle melodies, Mono’s live shows are frankly exhausting. This is not easy listening: in the flesh, Mono are the kind of band that catch an audience off guard with their brutal emotional intensity, leaving you hypnotised, crushed and utterly drained by the end of their set.
Mono are wordless because there are no earthly languages fit for their ineffable, otherworldly post-rock. This is a band best experienced live, loud and up front.
See Mono this December on the following dates:
Fri 4th Dec - Perth, Rosemount Hotel - tickets from Oxtix
Sat 5th Dec - Melbourne, Corner Hotel - tickets from Oxtix
Sun 6th Dec - Sydney, Newtown Social Club - tickets from Oxtix
Tue 8th Dec - Brisbane, Woolly Mammoth - tickets from Oxtix
So goes Ashes in the Snow, the opening track from Mono's fifth studio record, Hymn to the Immortal Wind and one of the highlights of their dense discography. It embodies everything Mono have come to represent in their fifteen year career – music that simultaneously conjures hope and apocalyptic dread, that evokes crushing loneliness and uplifting exaltation in the same note.
On their latest album, 2014’s The Last Dawn and Rays of Darkness, Mono’s sound is fully realized. Their ambitious marriage of cinematic largesse, doomish dread, sprawling post-rock and orchestral majesty is distilled into 84 minutes of emotionally demanding and immensely rewarding musical transcendence, cementing themselves alongside the likes of Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky at the forefront of the post-rock canon.
Despite their penchant for beautiful and brittle melodies, Mono’s live shows are frankly exhausting. This is not easy listening: in the flesh, Mono are the kind of band that catch an audience off guard with their brutal emotional intensity, leaving you hypnotised, crushed and utterly drained by the end of their set.
Mono are wordless because there are no earthly languages fit for their ineffable, otherworldly post-rock. This is a band best experienced live, loud and up front.
See Mono this December on the following dates:
Fri 4th Dec - Perth, Rosemount Hotel - tickets from Oxtix
Sat 5th Dec - Melbourne, Corner Hotel - tickets from Oxtix
Sun 6th Dec - Sydney, Newtown Social Club - tickets from Oxtix
Tue 8th Dec - Brisbane, Woolly Mammoth - tickets from Oxtix