Written by: NickWhat defines a demo? Typically it's a small low quality sample of band. Their first offering, generally pretty DIY and often times a place of confusion where a band is trying to find and define their stylistic approach. Apparently, a demo for this newly founded (2011) Belgian five-piece consists of nearly an hour of well-defined, high quality and downright outstanding funeral doom.
A few words continually rotate through my mind while giving Monads' first outing, Intellectus Iudicat Veritatem, a handful of solid listens in order to fully appreciate it. Monumental, melancholic, beautiful and sorrowful are those words. From the first track, The Stars are Screaming, Monads already have us wading through murky waters with our chins touching our chests and minds connecting with those screaming stars in their vast expanse of never ending, unsettling pain.
The music crawls at a sloth's pace but continually changes arrangement in order to endlessly captivate the listener. The guitars are brimming with melancholic tones while the low end is monumentally thick and punishing. The vocals have a nice range of deep, echoing agony to an almost vile sounding mid-range and even some higher pitch, tortured-quality vocals. Things speed up after some clean guitars toward the end of the last song, Absent as in These Veins to a brutish chug and aggressive black metal with turbulent vocals. Monads are sure to make the funeral community proud.
Monads' Intellectus Iudicat Veritatem is an album that should have gained much more notoriety in 2011 but sadly went under the radar (for myself at least). Doom mongers strap in and get ready for a re-release or a new release sometime in the coming future. These gentlemen bring everything to the table and everything they offer is worth the time and support.
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Couple pictures of the original pressing limited to 50.
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