Monolord ‘No Comfort’ Review: Swedish stoner rock trio mix big riffs with heartache on latest release.
Monolord haven’t been around very long, but they have made their presence known with four albums, an EP and a pair of ten-inch singles released in just six years. This brisk pace has shown the group growing and refining their sound, and on their latest release, No Comfort (Sept. 20th, Relapse) the band showcase their most realized effort to date.
Kicking off with the lumbering Bastard Son, the trio unleash a mesmerizing buzzsaw groove for nearly 10 minutes, punctuated by vocalist/guitarist Thomas V Jäger’s cosmic wail.
Last Leaf is another epic stomper, a 70’s throwback featuring a grandiose classic rock guitar solo and a wide range of dynamics, making for a truly transportive and immersive track.
Larvae shifts gears slightly, offering a dirge that employs elements of doom and southern rock, which perfectly frame Jäger’s lyrics of loss and tragedy, topped by a crunching groove metal outro.
Alone Together Forever Divided is an even more spectral ballad, drenched in gothic overtones and an atmosphere so thick and dusky that it clings to your ears like smoke.
Skywards traditional stoner riffing is offset by drummer Esben Willems jazz-inflected beats and fills, giving it a feel of uplift, with soaring sonics perfectly befitting its title.
The title track (which closes the album) acts like a distillation of all that’s come before, beginning with clean picked arpeggios before a crushing wail of feedback takes things into heavier territory, with a molasses thick riff that provides a through-line for the sense of melancholy that permeates the album.
When asked about the track, Jäger stated in a press release that “I think the song ‘No Comfort’ is the best song I have ever written, and you can sum up the lyrics of the whole album into that concept because it’s not a bright idea of life that we’ve got going on.”
That’s part of what makes No Comfort cut so deep. In an era where each news day seems to bring some new fresh hell with which to depress and infuriate us, No Comfort, despite its title, does offer some truly empathetic rock, healing and heavy in equal measure. It also shows that Monolord are one of the most vibrant acts in modern metal, and have no intention of slowing their momentum anytime soon.
